<![CDATA[ Latest from Space.com in United-launch-alliance ]]>

<![CDATA[ Latest from Space.com in United-launch-alliance ]]> https://www.space.com Wed, 06 Aug 2025 19:00:00 +0000 en <![CDATA[ Vulcan Centaur rocket to launch 1st national security mission on Aug. 12 ]]> United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket will conduct its first-ever national security launch next week, if all goes according to plan.

ULA announced on Tuesday (Aug. 5) that it's targeting Aug. 12 for USSF-106, a U.S. Space Force mission that will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

"This is the first national security space launch aboard the certified Vulcan rocket. The Vulcan rocket will deploy the USSF-106 mission directly to geosynchronous (GEO) orbit using the high-performance Centaur V upper stage," ULA said via X on Tuesday.

Vulcan Centaur — the replacement for ULA's venerable Atlas V rocket — has two flights under its belt to date, both of which have been successful.

The first one, which flew in January 2024, sent Astrobotic's robotic Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. (Peregrine suffered a crippling anomaly shortly after it deployed from the rocket's Centaur upper stage and ended up crashing back to Earth.)

Vulcan's second flight, in October 2024, was a test mission that flew with an inert mass simulator as a payload. The mass simulator took the place of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane, the originally planned payload, which wasn't ready in time for the launch.

Vulcan powered through a problem on that second flight — the failure of of an engine nozzle on one of its two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Its performance on those two missions impressed the Space Force enough to certify Vulcan Centaur for national security missions, a huge milestone for ULA that was announced in March.

The launch of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket carrying the U.S. Space Force (USSF)-106 mission for the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) is planned for Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025, from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,… pic.twitter.com/OkWwEAxSUzAugust 5, 2025

— Powerful new Vulcan Centaur rocket gearing up for 1st Space Force mission

— ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket launches on 2nd test flight (video)

The decision doubled the number of currently certified U.S. national security launch providers; SpaceX had been the only company that could loft such payloads. (ULA's Atlas V launched many national security missions over the years, but no such payloads are on its docket ahead of its retirement in 2030 or so.)

"Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security," Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the Space Force's program executive officer for assured access to space, said in a statement in late March. "Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency and flexibility needed by our nation's most critical space-based systems."

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/vulcan-centaur-rocket-to-launch-1st-national-security-mission-on-aug-12 RLb8fNrT2hKR5iHtpmFuGF Wed, 06 Aug 2025 19:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ US set new record with 21 commercial launches in June, FAA says ]]> Private spaceflight continues its upward trajectory.

American companies launched 21 commercial space missions in June 2025, which was a new record for a single month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The old record of 20 was set in November 2024.

"Operations during the record month include 21 launches conducted by four operators: Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance," FAA officials said in an emailed statement.

"These occurred in California, Florida, Texas and New Zealand, and involved orbital, suborbital and commercial human spaceflight missions," they added. (California-based Rocket Lab's primary launch site is on New Zealand's North Island.)

SpaceX was by far the busiest of the four operators, launching 15 of the month's 21 missions. Twelve of those 15 flights were devoted to building out the company's Starlink broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

June continued a very active 2025 for SpaceX, which has launched 81 missions so far this year. The company is therefore on pace to break its single-year record of 134 orbital liftoffs, which was set in 2024. (Those numbers don't count the suborbital test flights of SpaceX's new Starship megarocket, which launched four times in 2024 and has flown three times so far this year.)

— Blue Origin launches 6 tourists on suborbital trip from Texas, including 750th person ever to fly into space

— Facts about Rocket Lab

SpaceX was also responsible for one of June's two human spaceflight missions — Ax-4, which sent four private astronauts toward the International Space Station on June 25.

The month's other crewed mission was NS-33, a suborbital tourist flight by Blue Origin that launched and landed on June 29.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/us-set-new-record-with-21-commercial-launches-in-june-faa-says xtuAVLuwfxhMsdTABunoRb Tue, 01 Jul 2025 16:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Atlas V rocket launches 2nd batch of satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper megaconstellation (video) ]]>

Amazon's second big batch of internet satellites has taken flight.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (June 23) at 6:54 a.m. EDT (1054 GMT), carrying 27 spacecraft for Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

The launch came a week later than originally planned; it had been scheduled for June 16 but was delayed by an Atlas V engine issue.

A rocket lifts off next to a puff of smoke. — ULA's Atlas V 551 lifts off carrying the KA-02 Kuiper satellites for Amazon, June 23, 2025. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

An Atlas V also launched the first batch of Kuiper craft, sending 27 of them aloft from Cape Canaveral on April 28 (as well as two prototype Kuiper satellites, which flew in October 2023).

And there will be many more such liftoffs. The Project Kuiper constellation will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites, which will go up on about 80 more launches in the coming years.

ULA will do most of the lifting; Amazon booked eight Atlas V launches and 38 rides on its replacement, the Vulcan Centaur. But Project Kuiper satellites will also fly on rockets built by SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and European launch provider Arianespace.

"Those agreements comprise the largest commercial procurement of launch capacity in history, and support thousands of suppliers and highly skilled jobs across the U.S. and Europe," Amazon wrote in a Project Kuiper description.

The company hopes to start providing internet service with the constellation later this year.

— Amazon gets a green light to launch 3,000-satellite Kuiper constellation

— Blinded by the light: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

Project Kuiper will compete with SpaceX's Starlink, which already provides service to customers around the world using more than 7,600 operational satellites in LEO.

Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever assembled, and it's growing all the time; SpaceX has already launched 55 Starlink missions this year alone.

And these aren't the only two broadband projects underway in LEO. For example, China has already launched spacecraft for two different megaconstellations, Guowang ("National Network") and Qianfan ("Thousand Sails"). Both of these networks will feature more than 10,000 satellites, if all goes according to plan.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/atlas-v-rocket-launches-2nd-batch-of-satellites-for-amazons-project-kuiper-megaconstellation-video 6XAuraqngF2ofdHp5aHJAM Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:30:31 +0000 <![CDATA[ Watch ULA launch Amazon's 2nd batch of Kuiper internet satellites today ]]>

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to launch Amazon's second group of satellites for its Kuiper internet satellite constellation today (June 16), and you can watch the action live.

The 27 satellites, riding atop a ULA Atlas V rocket, are scheduled to lift off at 1:25 p.m. EDT (1725 GMT) today from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin 20 minutes before liftoff.

a bronze and white rocket stands poised on its launch pad set against a deep blue sky. — ULA is scheduled to launch the second batch of internet satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites on June 16, 2025. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

The forecast calls for a 75%  chance of acceptable weather conditions, with cumulus cloud cover being the primary concern (as of the time this article was published).

Should all proceed to plan, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket's two RD-180 engines and five side-mounted solid rocket boosters will power the first one minute and 46 seconds of flight. The boosters will then separate, followed by the jettison of the fairing that shields the Kuiper satellites at three minutes after launch.

The RD-180 engines will cut off at about 4 minutes, 23 seconds, and then the booster and upper stage will separate. A Centaur engine will thrust the satellites the rest of the way into orbit, cutting off at 18 minutes.

— Amazon gets a green light to launch 3,000-satellite Kuiper constellation

— Blinded by the light: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

The Atlas V rocket, flying in its 551 configuration, is outfitted with a medium-length protective fairing and five solid rocket boosters.

Amazon describes the goal of its Project Kuiper as "to deliver fast, reliable internet to customers and communities around the world." Amazon's first launch of 27 satellites in April. also on an Atlas V, began the network, which aims to have more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit after 83 launches on the Atlas V, ULA's Vulcan, Blue Origin's New Glenn and Arianespace's Ariane 6 rockets.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/watch-ula-launch-amazons-2nd-batch-of-kuiper-internet-satellites-today eHgRtwVLftYB2JXYnM2RhR Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Watch Atlas V rocket launch Amazon’s 2nd batch of Kuiper internet satellites on June 23 ]]>

The second big batch of Amazon's broadband satellites will take flight today (June 23), and you can watch the action live.

The stack of 27 satellites, part of Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation, is scheduled to launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket at 6:54 a.m. EDT (1054 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin about 25 minutes before liftoff.

Atlas V will launch the Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will maneuver to join a small but growing constellation of satellites that will offer wireless, high-speed internet to customers within the fleet's range of operation.

The delivery of the Kuiper 2 satellites will double the size of Amazon's current constellation, to 54.

ULA launched the Kuiper 1 mission on April 28. The company called it a "new beginning" in a May 28 post that hinted that the launch date for Kuiper 2 was nearing.

Kuiper missions 1 and 2 are the first of 83 planned launches to help grow Amazon's Kuiper constellation. Not all of them will fly on the Atlas V, however; Amazon plans to launch batches of Kuiper satellites aboard ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket, Arianespace's Ariane 6 and Blue Origin's New Glenn.

The Project Kuiper constellation will eventually harbor more than 3,200 satellites, if all goes according to plan. That will still be far fewer than SpaceX's rival Starlink broadband constellation, which already provides service to customers around the world. Starlink currently consists of more than 7,600 operational satellites, and it's growing all the time.

But Amazon's internet architecture differs from that of Starlink, so the company may not need to rival SpaceX in sheer satellite numbers to provide comparable service. Project Kuiper will combine its LEO constellation with a global network of ground stations and on-Earth infrastructure running Amazon Web Services, according to Amazon's website.

— Amazon gets a green light to launch 3,000-satellite Kuiper constellation

— Blinded by the light: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

The engineers of Project Kuiper are also focused on sustainability. Kuiper satellites are designed to minimize the risk of orbital debris, the company says. They are also working with astronomers on ways to reduce the satellites' visibility and interference with astronomical research and general stargazing.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9 p.m. ET on June 22 with the new target launch date of June 23. ULA had previously aimed to launch the mission on June 16 but stood down from that attempt due to an engine issue with the Atlas V.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/atlas-v-rocket-to-launch-amazons-2nd-batch-of-kuiper-internet-satellites-on-june-13 iPMcwTA988HpbQfzRL54F9 Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Amazon launches 27 satellites to begin building huge 'Project Kuiper' internet constellation (video) ]]>

The assembly of Amazon's big new satellite-internet constellation is underway.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (April 28) at 7:01 p.m. EDT (2301 GMT), carrying 27 of Amazon's "Project Kuiper" broadband spacecraft toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

It was the first of more than 80 planned launches to build out the Project Kuiper megaconstellation, which will eventually harbor more than 3,200 spacecraft.

That's a big number, but it won't set a record; SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, which already beams service down to customers around the world, currently consists of more than 7,200 operational spacecraft.

And Starlink — perhaps Project Kuiper's biggest competitor — is growing all the time: SpaceX has launched 31 Starlink missions so far this year, with many more on the docket. In fact, there was a Starlink launch less than three hours before today's Atlas V launch, with another planned for less than four hours after.

If all goes according to plan today, the Atlas V will deploy the 27 Project Kuiper satellites 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth. The spacecraft will then make their own way to their operational altitude of 392 miles (630 km).

"While the satellites complete the orbit-raising process, we will look ahead to our ultimate mission objective: providing end-to-end network connectivity," Amazon representatives wrote in a prelaunch statement.

"This involves sending data from the internet, through our ground infrastructure, up to the satellites, and down to customer terminal antennas, and then repeating the journey in the other direction," they added.

Project Kuiper is expected to begin providing coverage to customers later this year, according to Amazon.

— Amazon gets a green light to launch 3,000-satellite Kuiper constellation

— Blinded by the light: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

Today's launch was the second overall for the Project Kuiper program. An Atlas V sent two prototype satellites to orbit in October 2023, on a test mission designed to prove out the company's technology and inform the design of the constellation's operational craft.

And there are considerable differences between those pioneering satellites and the ones that went up today.

"We have improved the performance of every system and subsystem on board, including phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion systems and optical inter-satellite links," Amazon representatives said in the same statement.

"In addition, the satellites are coated in a dielectric mirror film unique to Kuiper that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible to ground-based astronomers," they added.

Most of the remaining 80-plus launches will be performed by the Atlas V and its successor, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Amazon has also signed launch deals with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, SpaceX and France-based Arianespace.

Today's launch was originally scheduled for April 9, but bad weather scuttled that try. ULA and Amazon then had to wait for a launch slot to open up on the Eastern Range, the Florida spaceport and testing site operated by the U.S. Space Force.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/amazon-launches-27-satellites-to-begin-building-huge-project-kuiper-internet-constellation WafmMeyobr68mcaTwVsfv6 Mon, 28 Apr 2025 23:10:54 +0000 <![CDATA[ Amazon's Kuiper 1 internet satellites get new April 28 launch date on Atlas V rocket after delay ]]> Amazon's first internet satellite fleet has a new launch date at last.

After weeks of delays, the first 27 satellites of Amazon's Project Kuiper internet constellation are scheduled to lift off atop an Atlas V rocket on April 28, the rocket's builder United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced over the weekend. Liftoff is set for 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

"This launch begins a new chapter in the commercial launch industry as Amazon partners with ULA to deliver the first batch of their advanced satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO)," ULA wrote on Friday afternoon (April 18).

The mission, called Kuiper 1, is the first of a planned 83 launches for Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband constellation, which aims to place more than 3,200 satellites in orbit to provide high-speed internet from space. While Kuiper 1 will fly on a beefy ULA-built Atlas V rocket, Amazon will also launch Kuiper batches on Arianespace's Ariane 6 rocket, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket and Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. Amazon launched two prototype Kuiper satellites in 2023 to set the stage for the Kuiper 1 mission.

ULA first attempted to launch Kuiper 1 for Amazon on April 9, but was delayed by weather. The company then said it was waiting for an available slot on the Eastern Range (used for launches from Florida) from the U.S. Space Force.

"Range availability," ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote on X when asked multiple times what was holding up the launch.

ULA has a two-hour launch window in which to launch Kuiper 1 for Amazon on April 28.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/amazons-kuiper-1-internet-satellites-get-new-april-28-launch-date-on-atlas-v-rocket-after-delay zxPefdJeETrXomh22Gp4EQ Mon, 21 Apr 2025 20:34:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Launch of Amazon's 1st Kuiper internet satellites delayed by bad weather ]]> Amazon may be a whiz at fast online deliveries, but the massive company will have to wait to launch the first satellites of its new space internet constellation after bad weather thwarted a liftoff on Wednesday night.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket attempted to launch 27 of Amazon's first Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on April 9, but persistent clouds near the pad violated launch rules, ULA officials said.

"It is confirmed that we will not continue with the Amazon Project Kuiper 1 launch activities today," ULA launch commentator Caleb Weiss said during a livestream. "We will work with our partners at the U.S. Space Force Space Launch Delta 45 for the timing of our next launch opportunity."

Bad weather plagued ULA's launch attempt Amazon throughout a two-hour flight window that opened at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT). Launch controllers worked through some technical glitches, but were primarily concerned thick cumulus clouds and rain within 10 miles of the pad, which violated launch weather rules, ULA officials said.

— ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket launches on 2nd test flight (video)

— US Space Force 5 years later: What has it accomplished so far, and where does it go from here?

The Space Force is apparently satisfied with the corrective actions taken and with Vulcan Centaur's prospects going forward, as it has given the rocket the green light to carry national security payloads.

That process was a lengthy and rigorous one, military officials said.

"Vulcan’s certification is the culmination of several years of effort by the Space Force and ULA, which encompassed 52 certification criteria, including more than 180 discrete tasks, two certification flight demonstrations, 60 payload interface requirement verifications, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 hardware and software audits, all to establish the technical baseline from which the Space Force will make future flight worthiness determinations for launch," Space Force officials wrote in the same statement.

"We are proud to have launched 100 national security space missions and honored to continue serving the nation with our new Vulcan rocket," Bruno said in the statement. "We thank the Space Force for their collaboration and confidence, and we are honored to support our national security needs for many years to come."

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/us-space-force-certifies-new-vulcan-centaur-rocket-to-launch-national-security-missions h39rjQ7TbeymD2xe2h4BLM Thu, 27 Mar 2025 22:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Powerful new Vulcan Centaur rocket gearing up for 1st Space Force mission ]]> In late 2024 or early 2025, United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly its first of more than two dozen U.S. Space Force missions allocated under a national security space launch contract.

"It's incredibly exciting," Mark Peller, Senior Vice President of Vulcan Development and Advanced Programs at ULA, told Space.com recently. "We've stacked the rocket down at the Cape [in Florida] and are going through all the normal pre-launch processing."

The Vulcan Centaur rocket will replace ULA's workhorse Atlas V, which has been flying since 2002. ULA chose the BE-4 engine from Blue Origin to power the newer rocket's first stage, as opposed to the Russian-made RD-180 used by Atlas V.

"As we transition operations from Atlas to Vulcan," Peller said, "the team I formed to develop Vulcan continues to work though planned upgrades to Vulcan to improve its performance, its versatility and meet the evolving demands of our customers in a competitive marketplace."

One of Vulcan’s benefits is lower-cost launches, due to what ULA calls sensible, modular, autonomous return technology, or SMART for short. SMART allows for the most expensive rocket parts to be recovered post-launch, then refurbished for reuse. "The majority of the value of the rocket is in the back end that contains the engines and lots of other critical systems," Peller said.

SMART reuse draws on a non-propulsive solution to recover the back end downrange of the launch. "We use an inflatable heat shield, or 'aeroshield,' that we're co-developing with NASA to help slow the engine module as it reenters the atmosphere," Peller said. "In the final phases of flight, we deploy parachutes, and it does a soft splashdown in the ocean." The inflatable heat shield protects the back end, serving as a life raft, until the ULA team recovers it.

In addition to private-industry customers, NASA plans to use Vulcan, but the Space Force's USSF-106 mission is the next one on the books.

"The Vulcan Centaur launch system brings a large range of performance capabilities and technological innovations from its baseline configuration," Col. Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive officer for the Space Force’s Assured Access to Space program, said in an emailed statement. "With the launch of Vulcan, we have completed our transition from the Russian engine and now have a single core rocket to deliver to our more demanding orbits."

The methane-fueled Vulcan has now flown two certification missions, a requirement for carrying out Space Force missions. While both missions were successful from ULA's perspective, they were not without their issues.

Vulcan’s debut, called Cert-1, launched on Jan. 8, 2024 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket carried the Peregrine lunar lander, built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic.

a rocket hangs suspended outside an assembly hanger. — (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

With a manifest featuring a variety of space-bound deliveries from 20 customers, such as a NASA laser array, a swarm of tiny robots, a physical bitcoin and even a hunk of Mt. Everest, Peregrine aimed to make America’s first privately funded moon landing.

Vulcan Centaur performed well. But Peregrine came up short: Due to a propellant leak from a faulty helium pressure control valve, the lunar lander never made it to the moon; it drifted through space for 10 days, then was guided to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere.

Vulcan’s second certification mission launched on Oct. 4, also from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. In contrast with Vulcan’s maiden voyage, this mission had no paying customers.

While launching Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser was the original plan, the robotic space plane wasn’t ready in time, so Vulcan lifted off with experiments and instrumentation enabling ULA to assess the rocket’s performance. ULA CEO Tory Bruno clocked the launch’s price tag in the "high tens of millions of dollars."

Less than a minute after liftoff on Oct. 4, an anomaly with one of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) caused the rocket to veer slightly before the main engines quickly corrected course, allowing Vulcan to complete the flight as planned. "The vehicle was able to compensate for it and fly through it," Peller said of the SRB anomaly.

"It had a minimal impact on performance," he added. "The vehicle proved to be very robust."

ULA is still investigating what happened. "We made a lot of good progress based on some of the parts of the motor — the debris from that nozzle that were actually recovered," Peller said. "That's provided valuable physical evidence."

After the completion of the two flights, Vulcan’s final stages of certification are underway. "The government has all the final data deliverables and are just doing their due diligence before they complete the formal certification process so we can move on and fly SF-106," Peller said.

— ULA's Vulcan rocket launches private US moon lander, 1st since Apollo, and human remains in debut flight

— ULA delays Dream Chaser space plane launch to certify Vulcan Centaur rocket for US military missions

On a global level, spaceflight continues to change rapidly. 2024 has seen a range of new developments, which may alter the course the industry takes in the coming years.

In January, for example, Houston’s Venus Aerospace teamed up with NASA to test a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE), which could revolutionize the propulsion capabilities of combustion engines. In May, India’s national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), successfully tested a liquid-fueled rocket engine built using additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. And SpaceX continues to advance rocket reusability, recently "catching" its Starship Super Heavy booster with the launch tower’s "chopstick" arms.

As we move further into the 2020s, the spaceflight industry has only become more important. Scientific, military, and commercial interests all rely on an increasingly private-funded launch industry to bring us closer to the stars.

]]> https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/powerful-new-vulcan-centaur-rocket-gearing-up-for-1st-space-force-mission p4wBAhi8tiJhNBvVnMgpt6 Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Go Centaur! Space Force stands up rocket stage at Los Angeles base ]]> A towering propellant tank and its rocket engine now stand on display at Los Angeles Air Force Base as a testament to its service to both the United States' military and civilian space missions.

The Centaur III upper stage tank and RL-10 engine exhibit was dedicated last month outside the headquarters for Space Systems Command, the U.S. Space Force's division for acquiring and delivering space capabilities. The liquid hydrogen-fueled Centaur, in its various configurations, has been used in almost 300 launches of Earth orbit and interplanetary spacecraft since 1962.

"The Centaur is deeply rooted in our history," said Col. Michelle Idle, deputy commander of Space Systems Command, addressing the audience of more than 100 who attended the Oct. 18 ribbon-cutting ceremony. "It has put many of our capabilities up to orbit. Time and time again, the Centaur has delivered."

The tank and engine were donated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), which provides satellite launch services for the Department of Defense. The hardware was previously used for various testing and research purposes over the course of the Atlas II and Atlas V rocket programs.

two people in military fatigues use oversize novelty scissors to cut a red ribbon in front of a cylindrical blue rocket propellant tank outside an office building — U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. (ret.) Thomas Taverney, chairman of the Space and Missile Heritage Center's foundation; Marcus Nichols of United Launch Alliance; U.S. Air Force Col. Michelle K. Idle, deputy commander of U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command; U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Sean Granier, commander of the 61st Civil Engineer and Logistics Squadron; Layesanna Rivera, Museum Specialist in the Los Angeles Air Force Base Historian Office; and Kendall Crook, senior acquisition analyst, cut the ribbon during a dedication ceremony for the Centaur III propellant tank exhibit at Los Angeles AFB on Oct. 18, 2024. (Image credit: U.S. Space Force/Van Ha)

The now-retired hardware was delivered by truck from the Mojave Desert to the base in El Segundo, California on Oct. 5. The exhibit is a result of a multi-year effort by the Space Force, the Air Force, industry partners and the Space Systems Command's Heritage Center, which supports the command's public history and educational activities.

Related: What is the U.S. Space Force and what does it do?

"The Centaur, the RL10, have been pretty much hand-in-glove with [what's now] Space Force since the '60s, getting critical satellites to orbit and still is there, helping us do our job," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Taverney, chairman of the Heritage Center's foundation, according to a Space Force release issued on Monday (Nov. 4). "Centaur's not only been a long-living system that has continuously been updated with new technology, but it's also been a pretty darn reliable system that's operated with a high success rate."

The Centaur was developed by a partnership between the Defense Department, NASA and industry. In addition to launching classified payloads for the military and intelligence agencies, the Centaur has flown on Titan and Atlas family rockets to send probes to study the sun and the planets. A version of the Centaur was developed but never flown on the space shuttle.

In its most recent configuration, the dual-engine Centaur V flies with ULA's new Vulcan heavy-lift launch vehicle.

"Centaur was the first cryogenic upper stage featuring hydrogen and liquid oxygen, so that we could fly longer, more intense and higher-energy missions," said Marcus Nichols, a former Air Force officer who served at Los Angeles AFB and who currently works as ULA's senior manager in southern California. "We've evolved that over time to make it the most capable high-energy upper stage in the business, servicing national defense and powering missions to every planet in the solar system — and Pluto."

a crowd of people stand beside a blue rocket propellant tank outside an office building on a sunny day — A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the dedication of a Centaur III upper stage and its associated RL-10 rocket engine was held at Los Angeles Air Force Base, outside of the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command, in El Segundo, California on Oct. 18, 2024. (Image credit: U.S. Space Force/Jose Hernandez)

— Vulcan Centaur rocket: The space workhorse of tomorrow

— Atlas V: Flexible, reliable rocket

The Centaur III and RL-10 exhibit is located beyond the security perimeter of Los Angeles Air Force Base, restricting public access. Other Centaur stages on display include a Centaur II at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Denver and Centaur G Prime (or Shuttle-Centaur) at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

"The Centaur, also known as America's workhorse in space, services as an engineering marvel, representing decades of innovation and achievement in aerospace technology," said Lt. Col. Sean Granier, 61st Civil Engineer and Logistics Squadron commander and host of the dedication ceremony. "Space is not just the final frontier; it is a realm where our dreams take flight and where teamwork, across disciplines, leads to groundbreaking discoveries."

]]> https://www.space.com/centaur-exhibit-space-systems-command-los-angeles-afb MbheAkgcLsdwa64DvWjc4Y Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:00:29 +0000 <![CDATA[ ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket launches on 2nd test flight (video) ]]>

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) powerful new Vulcan Centaur rocket is two for two.

Vulcan Centaur, the successor to ULA's workhorse Atlas V, launched today (Oct. 4) at 7:25 a.m. EDT (1125 GMT) after a series of holds from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, kicking off a key test flight called Cert-2.

ULA declared the flight a success, apparently keeping the new rocket on track to be certified for use on national security missions — a box that could be checked in the coming weeks, after ULA and the U.S. Space Force have had a chance to review data from the flight.

"I think we're all really excited to see that it's such a significant launch in terms of our certification and where we're going with Vulcan," Space Force program manager Megan Lepien said during the ULA launch livestream. "It was just a tremendous accomplishment from this team."

a rocket launch into a early morning sky colored pink and purple. — United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket launched at 7:25 a.m. EDT (1125 GMT) on Oct. 4, 2024. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance (ULA))

Vulcan Centaur flew for the first time this past January. That mission, called Cert-1, was a success, delivering the private Peregrine lunar lander to a highly elliptical moon-intercepting orbit as planned.

Peregrine didn't make it to the lunar surface, however; it suffered a propellant leak shortly after separating from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and was guided back to Earth before getting destroyed in our atmosphere.

Cert-2 was supposed to be the first-ever flight of Dream Chaser, a robotic space plane built by the Colorado company Sierra Space. But the private vehicle wasn't ready in time for liftoff, so ULA changed course, putting an inert "mass simulator" and a set of the company's own rocket-monitoring instruments on the Vulcan Centaur instead of a customer payload.

This shift meant ULA had to foot the entire bill for Cert-2, whose price tag is in the "high tens of millions of dollars," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters in a prelaunch briefing on Wednesday (Oct. 2).

Cert-2 "has literally one primary objective, which is to go fly a second time and have another success," Bruno added in Wednesday's briefing.

That objective was apparently achieved, as Vulcan Centaur seemed to perform well throughout the flight. The rocket ticked all the major boxes on schedule — jettisoning its two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) around two minutes after liftoff, for example, and acing stage separation about three minutes after that.

There was a burst of material from the rocket about 39 seconds after liftoff, as seen in the launch video. The cause was a failed nozzle on one of the SRBs, Bruno explained in a series of X posts after liftoff. But Vulcan Centaur was able to fly its planned flight profile nonetheless, he said.

"Rocket compensated, as designed. Nominal trajectory. Bullseye insertion," Bruno wrote in one such post.

a white and red Vulcan Centaur rocket with a burst of flame seen during launch — A burst of flame sparks from United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket about 39 seconds after liftoff on the Cert-2 test flight on Oct. 4, 2024. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

The Centaur V upper stage conducted two long engine burns as planned, the second ending about 35 minutes after liftoff. That milestone brought the main Cert-2 mission to an end, though ULA planned to do a little more work after that as well.

"We're going to conduct a few maneuvers with the upper stage, just to learn better how it behaves in those types of maneuvers, and also to give us more time with the [onboard] experiments," Bruno said in Wednesday's briefing.

Those maneuvers and experiments could inform the development of a future version of the Centaur V that's capable of operating in the final frontier for much longer than an hour or so, which Bruno said is the current norm for an upper stage.

"We think it's possible to take this to months, and that's a game-changer," he said. "What that would allow us to do is have an in-space transportation capability for in-space mobility and servicing and things like that."

If all goes according to plan, the Centaur V will head to a disposal orbit around the sun after completing those extra maneuvers and experiments, Bruno said via X on Wednesday. The stage will then be "passivated" — drained of propellant and battery power until it's an inert hunk of metal.

— ULA's 1st Vulcan Centaur rocket launch looks spectacular in these photos and videos

— ULA delays Dream Chaser space plane launch to certify Vulcan Centaur rocket for US military missions

ULA will analyze the Cert-2 flight data, then hand that information over to Space Force officials who will perform their own examination, Bruno said. Certification could follow relatively soon after.

"If the mission is very clean, like the Cert-1 mission, that goes pretty quickly," Bruno said on Wednesday. "I mean, that'll be done in weeks, not months."

ULA is gearing up for that short timeline. The company hopes to launch two national security missions, known as USSF-106 and USSF-87, with Vulcan Centaur before the end of the year. And, if all goes according to plan, the new rocket will be a big part of a busy 2025 for ULA. The company aims to launch 20 missions next year, Bruno said, half of them with Vulcan Centaur and half with the still-active Atlas V.

One of those Vulcan Centaur flights will likely loft the space plane that was originally supposed to fly today.

"We have room in the 2025 manifest for Dream Chaser," Bruno said on Wednesday. "It's just a matter of, you know, when they're ready to go, and then we'll work with the range and the other customers and find a slot for them, and we'll get them up there."

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:50 p.m. ET with information about the SRB nozzle failure from Tory Bruno.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-second-test-flight-launch-success RYCikGayqXMbz8U6VTSK5a Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:05:29 +0000 <![CDATA[ How to watch ULA's 2nd-ever Vulcan Centaur rocket launch on Oct. 4 ]]>

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to launch the second test flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket on Friday morning (Oct. 4), and you can watch the action live online.

Vulcan Centaur's second mission, a test flight called Cert-2, is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT). You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company.

Cert-2 is the second flight of Vulcan Centaur after January's Cert-1, which sent Astrobotic’s Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. Cert-2 is a demonstration mission required to certify the rocket for future use by the U.S. Space Force.

Vulcan Centaur was rolled out to SLC-41 on Monday (Sept. 30). The rocket had a successful “wet dress rehearsal” on Tuesday (Oct. 1), during which the company completed a fueling test and practice countdown.

ULA aims to launch two Space Force missions, called USSF-106 and USSF-87, with Vulcan Centaur by the end of the year. A successful Cert-2 launch will be a big step toward that goal, though post-flight data reviews are required to formally certify the rocket.

— ULA's 1st Vulcan Centaur rocket launch looks spectacular in these photos and videos

— ULA delays Dream Chaser space plane launch to certify Vulcan Centaur rocket for US military missions

The Cert-2 test flight will carry an inert "mass simulator" and instrumentation that will allow ULA to assess the rocket’s upper stage. The mission was originally supposed to fly Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane, but the spacecraft wasn’t ready in time for launch.

ULA will share mission updates on its blog from launch control beginning at 12 midnight EDT (0400 GMT). The launch webcast will start at 5:40 a.m. EDT (0940 UTC). You can also follow the launch activities online here at Space.com — be sure to check back for updates on the mission.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-cert2-launch-livestream T8UE4ntDUR7mWMuYLYR92G Thu, 03 Oct 2024 19:00:21 +0000 <![CDATA[ ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket is 'go' for 2nd-ever launch on Oct. 4 ]]> United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket is ready for its second-ever liftoff, which is targeted for Friday (Oct. 4).

ULA conducted a launch readiness review (LRR) today (Oct. 2) for Vulcan Centaur's second mission, a test flight called Cert-2 that's designed to help get the rocket certified for use by the U.S. Space Force. And everything went well.

"Leadership from ULA and the Space Force assessed the readiness of the rocket, payload and mission assets, discussed the status of pre-flight processing work, heard technical overviews of the countdown and flight, and previewed the weather forecast that projects a 75% chance of meeting the launch rules," ULA wrote in an update today. " At the conclusion of the meeting, senior leaders were polled and gave a ready status for launch, then signed the Launch Readiness Certificate."

We are "go" for the launch of the #VulcanRocket on the #Cert2 flight test! The launch window opens Friday at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC) from Cape Canaveral, FL. https://t.co/eWLyIiIUE6 pic.twitter.com/kWQ1nIvZ1bOctober 2, 2024

Cert-2 will fly from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT).

ULA rolled the Vulcan Centaur out to that pad on Monday (Sept. 30). On Tuesday (Oct. 1), the company conducted a crucial "wet dress rehearsal" with the rocket, fueling it up, going through a practice countdown and then offloading the propellant.

"We completed all of that," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters during a media call on Wednesday (Oct. 2). "It went very, very well, per plan."

The Vulcan Centaur's debut flight, Cert-1, lifted off in January, sending the privately built Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. The rocket performed extremely well, according to Bruno.

"It was the cleanest first launch I've ever had, and it is the cleanest first launch I've ever seen anybody else have," he said on Wednesday.

Peregrine was not similarly spotless, however. The lander suffered a propellant leak shortly after separating from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and was eventually guided to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere.

Cert-2 was supposed to launch an operational payload as well — Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane. But Dream Chaser wasn't ready in time for Cert-2's liftoff, so the mission will fly an inert "mass simulator," along with some extra instrumentation that will allow ULA to assess Vulcan Centaur's performance in great detail.

"There's no paying customer; this is all on us," Bruno said of Cert-2. "Which is also why we wanted to get some experiments on there and get as much utility out of it as we could."

Bruno declined to give an exact price tag for Cert-2 but did say it's in the "high tens of millions of dollars."

— ULA's 1st Vulcan Centaur rocket launch looks spectacular in these photos and videos

— ULA delays Dream Chaser space plane launch to certify Vulcan Centaur rocket for US military missions

If all goes well with Cert-2 and the ensuing data reviews, Vulcan Centaur will begin flying national security missions soon: ULA plans to launch two Space Force missions, called USSF-106 and USSF-87, with the rocket by the end of the year, Bruno said.

The company aims to launch 20 missions in 2025, he added, half of them with the Vulcan Centaur and half with the Atlas V, the workhorse rocket that the Vulcan Centaur is designed to replace. One of those Vulcan Centaur missions will loft Dream Chaser on its first orbital mission, Bruno said.

"We have room in the 2025 manifest for Dream Chaser," he said. "It's just a matter of, you know, when they're ready to go, and then we'll work with the range and the other customers and find a slot for them, and we'll get them up there."

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-go-launch-cert2 EjGxNVuxGsboeH6oEmc9Uj Wed, 02 Oct 2024 21:00:21 +0000 <![CDATA[ ULA rolls Vulcan Centaur rocket to pad ahead of 2nd-ever launch (photos) ]]> United Launch Alliance's (ULA) second Vulcan Centaur rocket has made it to the pad.

ULA rolled the Vulcan Centaur out to Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Sept. 30) to gear up for the vehicle's second-ever launch, which is scheduled for no earlier than Friday (Oct. 4).

Part of that prep work is a key fueling test known as a wet dress rehearsal (WDR), during which the rocket will be "loaded with a million pounds of cryogenic propellants at Space Launch Complex-41 and put through a complete countdown procedure," ULA said via X today.

a silver, white and red rocket stands inside a large hangar with people in hard hats milling around in front — ULA preps for the rollout of its second Vulcan Centaur rocket at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Sept. 30, 2024. (Image credit: ULA)

If all goes well with the WDR and other checkouts, Vulcan Centaur will launch from SLC-41 on Friday during a three-hour window that opens at 6:00 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT).

That liftoff will kick off Cert-2, the second of two test flights needed to certify the new rocket for use by the U.S. Space Force. The first such mission occurred in January, when Vulcan Centaur successfully lofted Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit.

Peregrine didn't end up making it to the moon, however: It suffered a propellant leak shortly after deploying from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and ended up returning to Earth to burn up in our atmosphere.

No operational spacecraft will go up on Cert-2. The mission "includes an inert payload and demonstrations associated with future Centaur V technologies," ULA wrote in a mission description.

a white and red rocket stands on a launch pad under blue skies — ULA's second Vulcan Centaur rocket stands at Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Sept. 30, 2024. (Image credit: ULA)

— ULA's 1st Vulcan Centaur rocket launch looks spectacular in these photos and videos

— ULA delays Dream Chaser space plane launch to certify Vulcan Centaur rocket for US military missions

That's a change from the original plan: Cert-2 was supposed to launch Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane on its first-ever orbital flight. But Sierra Space needed more time to prep Dream Chaser for its debut, which will still employ the Vulcan Centaur.

"We are working with Sierra Space to put the Dream Chaser back onto the manifest when they are ready to go," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters this past June, when the company announced the Cert-2 shift. "We waited as long as possible on Dream Chaser," he added, "because we really wanted to fly them."

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-rocket-rollout-second-launch-photos 7M8DLJYfX9GoEdZ8zZUuBk Mon, 30 Sep 2024 19:30:11 +0000 <![CDATA[ SpaceX rivals challenge Starship launch license in Florida over environmental, safety concerns ]]> SpaceX's plans to launch its Starship–Super Heavy two-stage rocket 44 times per year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have come under fire from its two main rivals: United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

The Starship vehicle is the world's largest rocket. Its two stages are SpaceX's Super Heavy booster rocket, and the upper stage spacecraft known somewhat confusingly as Starship or "Ship," on which a crew of up to 100 astronauts could someday fly.

Having undergone testing over the past few years, the design of the Starship/Super Heavy has undergone a number of revamps, with the latest resulting in a rocket that will stand up to 492 feet (150 meters) tall. To put this into context, the Saturn V was 363 feet (111 meters) tall, while the crewed version of NASA's new Space Launch System stands 322 feet 98 meters high. SpaceX's rocket is enormous, and the plan is for it to ferry astronauts to the moon and Mars.

Before SpaceX can get a license to commence launches from launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, an environmental impact statement must be provided that details what effects SpaceX's launches would have on the local environment and wildlife, as well as neighboring business and residents. This is done so by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and it is currently in the consultation phase, where local businesses, organizations and members of the public can provide their say as to the pros and cons of SpaceX's plans. And, well, SpaceX's rivals haven't held back.

Blue Origin submitted a 3-page letter to the FAA, in which they ask for a cap to be put into place on the number of launches and landings, reducing the 44 planned launches to an unspecified amount "that has a minimal impact on the local environment, locally operating personnel and the local community," they wrote.

The Blue Origin objections also raise the point that the Starship–Super Heavy will hold "an unprecedented" 5,200 metric tons of liquid methane fuel, which is highly flammable and, should something go wrong, could create a devastating explosion on the launch pad. Blue Origin claims that the safety margins are so wide that they overlap with the launch pads, hangars and offices of several other companies, including Blue Origin themselves on launch pad 36, all of which are leased from the Kennedy Space Center.

ULA's criticisms hit even harder in a 22-page document that the company submitted as part of the consultation. They don't hold back, accusing SpaceX of producing their own environmental impact statement for their extravagantly named 'Starbase' at Boca Chica in Texas from where they have been testing Starship so far.

a triple-core rocket blasts off under a sunny, partly cloudy blue sky. smoke expands below next to an obscured launch tower, near a long white hanger with SPACEX written on the side. To the left, a bird flies away. — SpaceX launches NASA's Psyche spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket, Oct. 13, 2023. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

In the letter, ULA points out that SpaceX's environmental impact statement suggested that debris from any mishap on launch would only cover a square mile (2.5 sq km). In April 2023, during Starship's first test flight, debris was scattered instead over a 6-mile (9.6-km) radius, endangering the surrounding area and showing just how much SpaceX had underestimated the danger to their surroundings. The explosion led to environmental groups bringing a lawsuit against SpaceX and the FAA, which was eventually dismissed in court. At Kennedy, ULA's base is located only 3 miles (4.8 km) from SpaceX's launch pad 39A, which makes them understandably nervous.

"With the increased liftoff thrust planned for Starship, the debris from a similar launch failure could reach larger, populated areas surrounding KSC," said ULA, whose recommendation is that SpaceX launch Starship from Boca Chica instead.

"As the largest rocket in existence," wrote ULA, "an accident would inflict serious or even catastrophic damage, while normal launch operations would have a cumulative impact on structures, launch vehicle hardware and other critical launch support equipment."

On the other hand, Blue Origin suggested that the Government build new launchpads farther away from 39A for those companies such as themselves that could potentially be affected by SpaceX's Starship operations.

There was also much concern for the environment and local wildlife. To achieve the aim of 44 launches per year, there would need to be at least 3 or 4 launches per month, resulting in launchpad 39A being in use year-round. The Merritt Island Wildlife Association (Merritt Island is the peninsula on which the Kennedy Space Center is found) pointed out that floodlights will be on almost all the time at 39A that will disrupt the natural rhythms of wildlife, for example by sending migrating birds astray.

the sun sets behind a giant rocket — The sun sets behind SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy rocket, at the company's launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, Nov. 15, 2023. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

Meanwhile, the Defenders of Wildlife organization in Florida point out that near Boca Chica, the eggs of nesting birds were cracked by falling granular debris resulting from Starship's previous test flights. Birds are known to nest near launch pad 39A, and more frequent launches would harm the bird population in the area. However, the Defenders of Wildlife do state their belief that using 39A is better than building brand-new launch sites on undeveloped ground near Kennedy Space Center, as proposed by Blue Origin, which would also have a great environmental impact.

A wide-ranging New York Times investigation published June 8 details the environmental damage SpaceX's operations at Boca Chica have caused, noting that the damage has sparked a debate "over how to balance technological and economic progress against protections of delicate ecosystems and local communities." While FAA leadership is aware of the environmental issues Starship is causing, the agency has also stressed that the vehicle is vital for America's space program.

"Blowing debris into state parks or national land is not what we prescribed, but the bottom line is no one got hurt, no one got injured," The FAA's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman told the New York Times. "We certainly don't want people to feel like they're bulldozed. But it's a really important operation that SpaceX is conducting down there. It is really important to our civilian space program."

It's not just wildlife that could be affected by Starship. SpaceX's water deluge system sprays a million gallons of water onto the pad during launch to protect it from damage during launch by absorbing much of the heat. While much of this water is vaporized, the rest runs off into collection ponds around the launch site. ULA questions whether and how this water will be treated for any toxic or otherwise hazardous chemicals in it, and what will prevent it from leaking out into the water supply at large.

The top of a giant steel rocket just after liftoff next to its black launch tower. Smoke glowed with orange billows beneath, filling the frame on both sides. — Fire from Starship's engines turns to billowing steam as SpaceX's water deluge system at its Starbase, Texas launch facility pours thousands of gallons beneath the rocket during liftoff, Nov. 20, 2023. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

SpaceX also has their eye on a second launch pad, having inquired about use of launch complex 37 from 2026 onwards on the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The U.S. Air Force is conducting its own environmental study of this proposal before granting permission.

ULA also questions SpaceX's decision to stop using offshore drone ships to land the Super Heavy booster on, and to instead land them back on 39A, which they say "shifts the risks of a system failure onto the communities, businesses, and environment that surround KSC."

All three companies are competing for the same NASA contracts, and some observers might see these complaints as sour grapes from SpaceX's rivals who are struggling to keep up with them. SpaceX's Elon Musk responded in a seemingly mocking fashion to Blue Origin's complaint on social media, posting "Sue Origin" on X (the social media company he owns) in the days following the company's letter.

— SpaceX teases catching Super Heavy booster with 'chopsticks' on upcoming Starship test flight (video)

— SpaceX joining FAA to fight environmental groups' Starship lawsuit: report

However, whatever the motivations behind the complaints, many of them relating to safety and environmental impact do seem pertinent. Even NASA have misgivings; space agency officials have previously stated that an incident at the launch pad could effectively cut NASA off from their only means of reaching the International Space Station, which would leave astronauts stranded.

Both Blue Origin's and ULA's objections to Starship operations at KSC come down to the two companies believing that the rocket is too untested, too dangerous and too disruptive to fit into the ecosystem of the other users of the Kennedy Space Center.

However, it will be up to the FAA to decide whether such concerns are valid, and whether they are enough to prevent Elon Musk and SpaceX from fulfilling their Starship dreams.

]]> https://www.space.com/spacex-rivals-challenge-starship-launch-license-in-florida Ek8WPNAnXTu7LHVqjs7yog Wed, 10 Jul 2024 10:00:04 +0000 <![CDATA[ Pentagon picks SpaceX, Blue Origin and ULA for $5.6 billion launch deal ]]> SpaceX, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) have been chosen to provide launch services for the U.S. Space Force.

The three companies will compete for National Security Space Launch (NSSL) contracts worth up to $5.6 billion across fiscal years 2025 through 2029, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on June 13.

The contracts are part of the NSSL Phase 3 launch services program. At least 30 NSSL Lane 1 missions, which head for low Earth orbit, will be launched over the five-year span.

National security missions include launches of classified satellites for U.S. agencies such as the Missile Defense Agency, Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office.

Contracts for NSSL Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 missions will be awarded at a later time. These missions will use heavy-lift rockets to target more challenging orbits.

Notably, the newly announced selection marks the first time that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been picked for national security launch contracts. The company has long targeted attaining such contracts, but was unsuccessful with a NSSL Phase 2 bid, despite an appeal.

The first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy-lift rocket is currently scheduled for August 2024, aiming to send NASA's two-spacecraft EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission to Mars.

Meanwhile, ULA will be aiming to get its new Vulcan rocket flying regularly after a successful first launch in January.

— What is the U.S. Space Force and what does it do?

— Space Force orders 'jetpack' to give 2 years of maneuverability to military satellite

The NSSL Phase 3 is designed to increase competition, driving down launch costs for national security payloads, SpaceNews reports. The contract notice stated that seven offers were received for the competitive acquisition.

The next opportunity for launch companies to secure national security launches will come in financial year 2025.

]]> https://www.space.com/spacex-blue-origin-space-force-launch-contracts-2025-2029 nydeha66ecApAM73xWukRV Fri, 21 Jun 2024 12:00:40 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'Everything's a compromise:' How this NASA astronaut put Boeing's Starliner to the test (exclusive) ]]>

Shortly after shepherding the first Boeing Starliner to a space port, NASA astronaut Bob Hines got a special assignment.

Hines was one of the astronauts working in the International Space Station for the historic first berthing of an uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft on May 22, 2022. Hines, who flew on SpaceX Crew-4, returned to Earth from half a year in space that October, to learn that NASA wanted him to help see Starliner through its first crewed mission.

It took extra time after new technical issues arose, but Starliner at last lifted off yesterday (May 21) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on its debut astronaut mission. Hines, a former U.S. Navy test pilot, shares that military heritage with the two members of Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT): NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

A big advantage of that military background, he told Space.com at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in early May, is everyone has a handle on "test fundamentals" they learned in the prestigious Naval Test Pilot School. "It's about teamwork, and building and leading teams to go do hard things," Hines said of the experience. "That's fundamental to it."

an overhead shot of two astronauts smiling in a small windowed room of the international space station, surrounded by computers and a window — NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren (left) and Bob Hines in the International Space Station cupola, shortly before assisting with the historic first docking of Boeing Starliner to the orbiting complex on May 20, 2022. (Image credit: NASA)

Hines is a member of the joint test team, a team within the commercial crew program that manages the test and verification of commercial crew vehicles. Additionally, he is assistant to NASA's chief astronaut on the commercial crew side — that's a sort of technical advisory role to advise the chief on progress, he explained.

Starliner, one of NASA's two commercial crew vehicles, flew its first crewed mission four years after SpaceX's Crew Dragon in 2020. SpaceX had the advantage of borrowing design and experience from eight years of cargo Dragon missions, while Starliner was a new spacecraft.

As such, Starliner met snags: its first uncrewed mission in 2019 failed to reach the ISS as planned after software glitches stranded the spacecraft in the wrong orbit. While Hines safely saw a second Starliner berth flawlessly in 2022, crewed missions were again delayed last year by issues with the parachutes and with wiring. (All issues were addressed to NASA's and Boeing's satisfaction well ahead of CFT, officials have repeatedly emphasized in recent months.)

view through a space station video of a cone-shaped spacecraft docked to the international space station. the curve of earth and black of space is visible behind — Boeing's Starliner space capsule docked at the International Space Station during Orbital Test Flight 2 in May 2022. (Image credit: ESA)

Design decisions, Hines explained, are always difficult as aerospace technicians need to consider "trades": emphasizing one aspect of a spacecraft (such as more mass) means that something has to give somewhere else (available rocket fuel to carry other things, for example). Hines was part of the team working to make smart trades as Starliner met its final design challenges.

"Sometimes maybe it's not about solving it technically, but procedurally, and getting the teams together and building that kind of cohesion so that we can have those conversations and make those trades," he explained. "Everything's a compromise. So it really is all about getting those different points of view together, getting them all laid out on the table, and then figuring out what the best path forward is."

an astronaut signing his name near a mission patch mounted to a space station wall — NASA astronaut Bob Hines, a member of SpaceX Crew-4 and the Expedition 68 flight engineer, signs his name in 2022 around the mission patch for the first Boeing Starliner mission that docked to the International Space Station. That mission, Orbital Flight Test-2, berthed successfully in May 2022. The sticker is mounted in the International Space Station's Harmony module's vestibule. (Image credit: NASA)

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

That design process continues even after Starliner returns, as future missions are put in process. Starliner-1, the first operational crewed mission with astronauts, has most of its hardware ready to go for a launch no earlier than early 2025. Assuming all goes to plan on CFT, that spacecraft will fly mostly as-is, with future missions gaining deeper design "lessons learned" from the pioneering astronaut mission.

"We're going be looking at looking at this data [from CFT] and seeing is it what we expect? If it's not, why? Trying to figure those kinds of things out," Hines explained. "It is a test flight. So we fully expect to have some unexpected things arise during this test flight. And so that's kind of where I'm coming in along with the other team — members of the Joint test team — to analyze that data and really look at it."

Hines plans to capture the crew's experience even during the flight, which will include space-to-ground interviews in which he talks to Wilmore and Williams while matters are fresh on their mind. "We'll have a series of questions. We'll take their comments down. And then we'll pair all that up with the data that we saw."

"It's really important," he added of the process. "Those of us that grow up in flight tests, we get in the habit of talking into the tapes, we say it. We are making comments real-time, and they might be short and abbreviated, but [it is a] memory jogger so that when we come back, we can recall what that detail was."

]]> https://www.space.com/nasa-astronaut-starliner-test-team-celebrate-launch MohdZDQdBzA8HCR2G4PVVj Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ SpaceX congratulates Boeing, ULA on 1st crewed Starliner launch ]]> SpaceX bigwigs celebrated the arrival of a new American capsule on the human-spaceflight scene today (June 5).

That spacecraft is Boeing's Starliner, which is carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) after launching this morning atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

"Congratulations on a successful launch!" SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X today.

SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, shared similar, slightly more verbose sentiments in an X post of her own: "Congratulations to @NASA, @BoeingSpace and @ULAlaunch on this morning's launch to the @space_station, and Godspeed to Butch, Suni and Starliner on your flight!"

Congratulations on a successful launch! https://t.co/DiwBo6LheWJune 5, 2024

Starliner is scheduled to reach the ISS tomorrow (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can watch that milestone here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

The capsule, Wilmore and Williams will remain at the orbiting lab for about a week, then head back home to Earth to wrap up the mission, which is known as Crew Flight Test (CFT). If all goes well, Starliner will be certified to fly six-month astronaut missions to and from the ISS for NASA — something SpaceX already does.

Boeing and SpaceX both got multibillion-dollar contracts from NASA's Commercial Crew Program back in 2014 to provide this astronaut-ferrying service. SpaceX launched its version of CFT, known as Demo-2, in May 2020 and is now in the middle of its eighth operational, long-duration crewed mission for the agency.

Starliner's road has been far bumpier. The capsule failed to meet up with the ISS on its first uncrewed test flight back in December 2019, for example. And issues with the capsule's parachute system and wiring (much of which was wrapped in flammable tape) caused further delays.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

It's easy to frame the SpaceX-Boeing situation as a race — one that Musk's company is winning handily. But NASA doesn't see things that way, according to agency chief Bill Nelson.

"When we expand our fleet of spacecraft, what we're doing is expanding our reach to the stars," Nelson said in a postlaunch news conference today. "So this is a special moment. It's another one of those great markers in history."

Boeing representatives also downplayed the competition angle, sending positive vibes back in SpaceX's direction.

"We don't see it as a competition," Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said during today's news conference. "I sit on my front porch and I watch every SpaceX mission, and I root for them, too. This is something that's great for the entire country."

]]> https://www.space.com/spacex-elon-musk-congratulates-boeing-ula-starliner-launch rPgYaB2W84kSGxyYV4Gxhb Wed, 05 Jun 2024 20:00:24 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'They're going to test this thing from izzard to gizzard:' NASA hails success of Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch ]]> NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance (ULA) celebrated the historic launch of a second commercial crew spacecraft with astronauts today (June 5).

Boeing's Starliner headed toward the International Space Station (ISS) today at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) with two NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots on board: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The duo made the record books not only as the first humans to ride Starliner, but also the first to launch atop ULA's veteran Atlas V rocket.

"This is a special moment. It's another one of those great markers in history," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a post-launch press conference today at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, near the launch site, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"What NASA does is hard," Nelson added. "Spaceflight is hard, but it’s worth doing."

Today's launch marked the first time astronauts have left Earth from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (or its many previous incarnations, which included Cape Kennedy Air Force Station and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) since Apollo 7 in 1968. But more will likely follow in its footsteps soon.

The agency's other commercial crew vendor, SpaceX, has already sent astronauts to space multiple times, first notching this milestone four years ago. SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which built off the company's successful cargo Dragon design, carried its first astronauts to space on a test flight in May 2020. Boeing, working with a new spacecraft, needed extra time to achieve the same thing.

Starliner's first uncrewed test flight, in December 2019, suffered several software glitches that kept the spacecraft in the wrong orbit, unable to reach the ISS. The second uncrewed effort, which launched in May 2022, was successful: Starliner arrived at the ISS safely. Yet the newly launched astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), faced new delays in 2023 after significant issues were found with Starliner's parachute system and wiring (much of which was wrapped in flammable tape); these necessitated fixes, which took time.

Several other, more minor issues cropped up right before launch. CFT was supposed to get off the ground on May 6, but the team called that try off about two hours before launch after noticing a misbehaving valve in the Atlas V's upper stage. ULA decided to replace the valve, which pushed the next try back to May 17. But then teams noticed a slight helium leak in one of Starliner's reaction-control thrusters, which delayed things further. Ultimately, NASA, Boeing and ULA deemed the helium leak a minor issue and cleared CFT for launch on June 1. That try, however, was aborted just minutes before liftoff thanks to faulty ground equipment, pushing liftoff back to today.

"I know it's really easy to lose patience as you're waiting for launches to happen," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said during today's press conference. "But, as I said before, good things are worth waiting for."

The focus of the CFT team is now on making sure Wilmore and Williams safely reach the ISS while testing key systems along the way. The duo will do some manual flying, for example, to get a feel for Starliner's various systems.

Wilmore and Williams are "going to test this thing from izzard to gizzard, and they're going to certify it for a rotational basis to send crew to the International Space Station," Nelson said. ("Izzard," in case you were wondering, is another word for the letter "z.")

If all goes according to plan, Starliner will dock autonomously with the orbiting facility tomorrow (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT), a milestone that you can watch live here at Space.com.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

Assuming the roughly 10-day-long CFT goes as planned and the mission meets all major objectives, Boeing's first operational mission, Starliner-1, is scheduled for no earlier than 2025. That coming mission's commander, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, was backup on CFT, while mission specialist and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Josh Kutryk worked ascent as capcom (capsule communicator). Also on board Starliner-1 will be NASA's Scott Tingle.

Keeping the Starliner-1 crew tightly integrated with CFT was a key goal in training, to smooth the flow between the missions as much as possible, Boeing and NASA have emphasized, as the ISS seeks to welcome U.S.-led crews every six months. The goal is for Dragon and Starliner to alternate launch opportunities.

Russia likely will not fly a cosmonaut aboard Starliner-1, as the country is waiting for more data on the spacecraft, NASA officials said in a press conference on May 3. How that will affect integrated crews in the future remains to be seen, as NASA plans to continue flying its astronauts aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for backup and policy reasons.

Boeing is expected to fly six or seven operational Starliner crews until the planned retirement of ISS in 2030, although it is possible Starliner will continue to serve the agency, helping NASA astronauts get to and from commercial space stations planned in the next decade.

]]> https://www.space.com/nasa-boeing-celebrate-1st-starliner-astronaut-launch XJLoNTkSmxQrMSEgbgQGMU Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:48:34 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's Starliner launches astronauts for 1st time in historic liftoff (photos, video) ]]>

Boeing's Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission is underway.

Starliner, Boeing's new astronaut taxi for NASA, soared into space today (June 5) from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, notching a huge milestone after nearly two decades of commercial crew planning.

Veteran NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former U.S. Navy test pilots with 11,000 flight hours between them, are riding aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule, which launched today at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) atop a United Launch Alliance's (ULA) workhorse Atlas V rocket. As it was for Starliner, this was also the first time astronauts have launched atop an Atlas V in its 22-year flight history.

a white rocket launches on a sunny day above a plume of fire and smoke — Boeing's Starliner spacecraft launches atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, 2024 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

"We all know that when the going gets tough, as it often does, the tough get going, and you all have," Wilmore said while waiting on the pad for liftoff. "Let's get going, let's put some fire in this rocket. "

"Let's go Calyspo, take us to space and back," pilot Sunita Williams said just minutes before launch, referring to the name of the Starliner capsule.

Starliner is headed toward the International Space Station (ISS), where Wilmore and Williams will spend about eight days putting the spacecraft through a series of tests toward operational crew certification. Rendezvous is scheduled for Thursday (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can follow the mission with our Starliner live updates page.

two astronauts in blue space suits wave and smile — NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Commander Butch Wilmore (L) and Pilot Suni Williams walk out of the Operations and Checkout Building on June 5, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The fiery launch brings NASA within reach of a goal the agency set more than a decade ago: getting two American commercial vehicles up and running for astronaut missions to the ISS. It's been a long road to get here, as the roots of this goal go back to at least 2006.

The newly launched Starliner mission, a roughly 10-day jaunt known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was originally scheduled to lift off on May 6. But that attempt was scrubbed about two hours before launch, when team members noticed a "buzzing" valve on the Atlas V's upper stage.

ULA decided to replace the valve, which required rolling the rocket off the pad and back to the company's vertical integration facility. That work delayed the planned liftoff until May 17, but then another issue arose: a slight helium leak in one of the reaction-control thrusters in Starliner's service module.

a rocket launches on a sunny day, with the sea visible behind it — Boeing's Starliner spacecraft launches atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, 2024 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: NASA TV)

The mission team took more time to analyze the leak and its potential consequences, ultimately deeming it a minor issue and clearing CFT for a planned June 1 liftoff. "Sometimes, for spaceflight, you plan for contingencies, and you design the vehicle to have margin," Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, said during a pre-launch press briefing on Friday (May 31).

"We have margin in the helium tank," he added. "We could handle a leak that's 100 times worse than this. So [...] we concluded that the smartest thing to do was to go fly the mission, and we could fly it safely."

The June 1 attempt, however, was aborted just minutes before liftoff thanks to a failed power distribution source in the ground equipment. The mission team replaced the faulty gear, setting CFT up for its launch today.

a rocket booster flies away from a rocket core stage, with earth visible below — A solid rocket booster is jettisoned from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, 2024 during the Crew Flight Test of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA TV)

CFT aims to check out Starliner thoroughly ahead of certifying the spacecraft for longer missions. Williams and Wilmore will do some manual flying, test emergency scenarios like losing communications or power, and do a lot of debriefing to ensure that future Starliner crews know what to expect.

If all goes well on CFT, Starliner will carry its first astronaut crew for about six months to the ISS, perhaps as early as 2025. Starliner-1, that first operational flight, will carry NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Scott Tingle along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Josh Kutryk. The Starliner-1 crew is already deep in training, and Fincke served as backup for CFT as well.

three nasa astronauts in a van smiling at a camera — Three NASA astronauts on their way to a dress rehearsal for Boeing Starliner's first mission with humans, called Crew Flight Test (CFT). They are inside Astrovan II, an Airstream crew transport vehicle for Starliner launches. From left to right: CFT commander Butch Wilmore, CFT pilot Suni Williams and CFT backup Mike Fincke. Fincke is also commander of Starliner-1, the first operational mission. (Image credit: Mike Fincke/NASA/X)

Commercial crew's genesis extends back to the commercial cargo program, which was first funded in 2006, as NASA used similar models to get private robotic and crewed vehicles running to the ISS. Until then, only government programs had sent supplies to the orbiting lab; agency officials turned to industry to nurture those companies' independence and resilience while, ideally, saving on taxpayer cost.

Commercial cargo nurtured the development of SpaceX's cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus vehicle, both of which have been flying robotic resupply missions to the ISS for more than a decade, and will soon send Sierra Space's Dream Chaser to space as well. The success of cargo development helped NASA award its first commercial crew contracts in 2010, collectively totaling $50 million (worth about $72 million in 2024 dollars) to five companies.

The quintet included Blue Origin, Boeing, Paragon Space Development Corp., Sierra Nevada (now Sierra Space) and ULA, each of which received support under CCDev-1 (Commercial Crew Development-1) for several human spaceflight technologies. ULA's funding helped certify the Atlas V for human missions.

A space capsule atop a rocket ship rests against a launch tower. — The Boeing Starliner spacecraft for Crew Flight Test sits atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket (not visible) at ULA's Launch Complex 41, May 31, 2024. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

Between 2010 and 2014, several new rounds of commercial crew funding brought extra support to Boeing, SpaceX and a range of other companies. CCDev-2, announced in April 2011, awarded a total of $270 million to Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX. (Boeing got $92 million in this round for Starliner, while SpaceX's $75 million went toward the development of Crew Dragon.)

The funding increased with Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) in August 2012, as NASA also narrowed the field to three companies: Sierra Nevada received $212 million for Dream Chaser, while Boeing and SpaceX got $460 million and $440 million, respectively.

SpaceX and Boeing then received the last major contract for final development work, known as Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap), in September 2014. Boeing's deal was worth $4.2 billion back then, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. The money was also meant to cover six operational crewed flights to and from the ISS.

a cone-shaped spacecraft with hatch open in space. it is next to the top of a robotic arm — An uncrewed SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft made its first visit to the International Space Station in 2019. Here it is pictured with its nose cone open, revealing its docking mechanism while approaching the station's Harmony module. (Image credit: NASA)

As is common with big spaceflight projects, lots of logistical and technical obstacles arose for both companies' spacecraft. NASA wanted the two CCtCap awardees to fly astronauts in 2017, but SpaceX's first such test flight launched in 2020, while Boeing's was delayed even longer, until today.

Lots of things contributed to the wait. Congress repeatedly gave less money than the White House and NASA requested for commercial crew, and technical obstacles arose. Boeing's solutions, however, took more flights and more time than SpaceX's.

SpaceX has sent 12 crewed missions to the ISS to date, including the 63-day Demo-2 test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in 2020. Their mission had been expected to launch in 2019, shortly after an uncrewed Crew Dragon successfully reached the ISS for the first time that March. But only a month later, that Dragon exploded during a ground test of its launch-abort system. SpaceX, as one would expect, put off human launches until it could address the mishap cause, which turned out to be a faulty valve.

Starliner's issues were more complex. Its own first uncrewed mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), never reached the ISS as planned in December 2019. The capsule's timing system got confused, and Starliner became stuck in an orbit that made it impossible to rendezvous with its destination. The investigation was complex and lengthy, requiring dozens of fixes, and the pandemic's arrival in early 2020 further delayed schedules due to supply chain problems and social distancing requirements.

a cone-shaped spacecraft with hatch open flying in space. behind is the earth — Boeing's Starliner makes its first uncrewed approach to the International Space Station during Orbital Flight Test-2 on May 21, 2022. (Image credit: NASA)

Starliner's next uncrewed flight met up with the ISS flawlessly in May 2022, but its road to crewed flights faced another obstacle in 2023. Late in CFT's training flow, new issues with the spacecraft were discovered, requiring extra fixes ahead of flight. The most pressing concerned the main parachutes (which carried less load than engineers thought) and the capsule wiring (which, as it turned out, was largely wrapped in flammable P213 tape).

The CFT astronauts, and Boeing and NASA, have repeatedly said these issues are behind them, although new issues could arise during CFT. Wilmore has also downplayed CFT as being the one thing determining Starliner's success; he frames all stages of development for astronauts as "vitally important."

"This is human spaceflight," Wilmore explained to reporters in a livestreamed press conference on April 25, when he and Williams arrived at KSC for quarantine, training and launch preparations ahead of the May 6 attempt. "You know that adage you've heard since Apollo 13: failure is not an option. And that has nothing specifically to do with Boeing or this program. That's all things that we do in human spaceflight."

In addition, a failure of a parachute to fully open during Blue Origin's recent NS-25 suborbital crewed launch prompted Boeing to double-check Starliner’s own parachute systems.

"Starliner uses some similar components to [the New Shepard] parachute system," Stich explained during the May 31 briefing. According to Stich, Blue Origin provided NS-25 flight data with NASA, SpaceX and Boeing, allowing engineers to ensure the functionality of specific components. And, after examining the data, Stich said it was determined Starliner was "good to go fly."

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

With the ISS expected to continue flying until at least 2030, the plan going forward is for three different spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab. Aside from Dragon and Starliner, Russia will continue to send cosmonaut-led crews using its Soyuz spacecraft until at least 2028, when the nation's commitment to the partnership is scheduled to expire.

Some NASA astronauts continue to use Soyuz for policy reasons, and also because the space station partners want as many backups as possible in case of technical problems with any one spacecraft.

As for private Starliner astronaut missions aside from NASA obligations for ISS, Boeing officials have said repeatedly that they want to focus on fulfilling their NASA contract first.

In the May 31 briefing, Fincke said that CFT "will help continue the certification process for Starliner, so that Starliner 1, 2, 3, to infinity and beyond, can fly and provide services to the International Space Station, and it’s up to Boeing, but other other missions available out there too."

Besides that, CFT "really is all of our attention at this point," Mark Nappi, Boeing's commercial crew program manager, told reporters on April 25. With at least six more years of ISS flights to plan for, "we've got plenty of time to think about what's after that," he added.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-crew-flight-test-launch 3kQwdTqdzTZECLMGJVStAd Wed, 05 Jun 2024 15:25:02 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch delayed again, to May 25 ]]> The first astronaut mission of Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft has been pushed back by an additional four days, to May 25.

Tuesday (May 21) had been the latest target date for the launch of Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT), which will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly week-long stay.

But NASA announced today (May 17) that it's now eyeing May 25 for the liftoff, which will take place atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast.

"The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft's service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster," agency officials wrote in an update today.

That leak was discovered earlier this week, prompting the mission team to push CFT's planned launch from today to May 21. Further analysis of the leak suggests that it's not a huge problem, but NASA, Boeing and ULA want more time to assess the situation, agency officials wrote in today's update.

"Pressure testing performed on May 15 on the spacecraft's helium system showed the leak in the flange is stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight," the update reads.

"The testing also indicated the rest of the thruster system is sealed effectively across the entire service module," it continues. "Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight."

CFT was originally supposed to launch on May 6, but that attempt was scrubbed a few hours before liftoff when the launch team noticed a "buzzing" valve in the Atlas V's upper stage. ULA eventually decided to replace the valve, a process that required rolling the Atlas V and Starliner off the pad and back to an assembly building. That operation pushed the target launch date to today, which became untenable after the helium leak cropped up.

Starliner and its rocket ride remain in the assembly building. Williams and Wilmore, meanwhile, are in quarantine in Houston. They'll return to Florida's Space Coast when the target launch date draws near, NASA officials said in today's update.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS (photos)

Boeing developed, and is flying, Starliner under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. SpaceX got a similar deal, worth $2.6 billion, for work on its Dragon capsule.

SpaceX is in the middle of its eighth contracted, long-duration astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA. CFT will be Starliner's first crewed effort, the equivalent of SpaceX's Demo-2 mission, a test flight that launched in May 2020.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-first-astronaut-launch-delay-may-25 w6VYwasvh2XXqhPQmrPFXj Fri, 17 May 2024 21:23:18 +0000 <![CDATA[ Helium leak delays Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch to May 21 ]]> The crewed debut of Boeing's Starliner capsule has been pushed back an additional four days.

Starliner had been scheduled to lift off this Friday (May 17) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a mission that will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay.

But that's no longer the plan. Teams detected a small helium leak in Starliner's service module and have pushed the target date back to May 21, Boeing announced in an update today (May 14).

Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast. The May 21 launch is scheduled for 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT); you can watch it live here at Space.com when the time comes.

Today's news is the latest in a string of recent CFT delay announcements. The mission was originally supposed to lift off on May 6, but the team called that attempt off about two hours before launch after noticing a "buzzing" valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage.

Boeing, NASA and ULA initially pushed the launch target back to May 10, then delayed it to May 17 after determining that the troublesome valve needed to be replaced, an operation that required rolling the Atlas V off the pad to an assembly facility at Cape Canaveral.

The troublesome valve was replaced and is behaving normally, Boeing representatives said in today's update.

The newfound helium leak, they added, has been traced to a "flange on a single reaction control system thruster" in Starliner's service module. These thrusters don't burn helium, but the gas allows them to fire properly.

"NASA and Boeing are developing spacecraft testing and operational solutions to address the issue," Boeing wrote in the update. "As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale."

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

CFT will be the third flight for Starliner, after two uncrewed launches to the ISS. The capsule suffered several problems on its first mission, which lifted off in December 2019, and failed to meet up with the orbiting lab as planned. But Starliner succeeded on its second try, which launched in May 2022.

CFT is a crewed shakeout cruise for the capsule; if all goes well on the upcoming mission, Starliner will be certified to fly NASA astronauts on long-duration missions to and from the ISS. Boeing holds a $4.2 billion contract with the space agency to do just that, which was signed in 2014.

SpaceX got a similar deal at the same time, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk's company flew its equivalent of CFT in 2020 and is in the middle of its eighth operational, long-duration astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-cft-launch-delay-helium-leak LVAsReGuvxpnncwmCjxS8S Tue, 14 May 2024 16:59:47 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's Starliner rolled off launch pad to replace 'buzzing' rocket valve (photo) ]]> Boeing's Starliner capsule has left the launch pad.

Starliner and its rocket ride, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V, rolled off the pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (May 8), heading to an assembly building at the site so scientists can replace a misbehaving valve in the launcher's upper stage.

The duo could be back soon, however: They're scheduled to launch no earlier than May 17, kicking off Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission, a trial run to the International Space Station (ISS) called Crew Flight Test (CFT).

Teams from @ulalaunch have returned the #Starliner and Atlas V rocket to its integration facility to replace a valve on the rocket’s upper stage. @NASA’s @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Test is targeted to launch no earlier than 6:16pm ET May 17. More: https://t.co/8Wxbz9eq7h pic.twitter.com/jZmhTU1v1wMay 8, 2024

CFT was originally supposed to launch on Monday night (May 6), but the mission team called things off about two hours before liftoff after noticing that an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage was opening and closing rapidly. This repeated action was audible; team members described it as a "buzzing."

The planned launch was then pushed to no earlier than Friday (May 10). However, that new target date became untenable after ULA decided that the buzzing valve needed to be replaced, an operation that required rolling the Starliner-Atlas V stack back to its integration facility.

If CFT does indeed launch on May 17, it will happen at 6:16 p.m. EDT (10:16 p.m. GMT). Whenever the mission indeed lifts off, you can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS for a roughly eight-day stay. The mission is designed to certify Starliner for long-duration flights to the orbiting lab, which Boeing will fly under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014.

SpaceX also received a similar deal, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk's company has already completed seven operational crewed missions to the ISS for NASA using its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; it's in the middle of its eighth such flight, which launched in March.

]]> https://www.space.com/starliner-rolled-off-launch-pad-replace-rocket-valve G5QquTkNyYYVotRsL62oDL Wed, 08 May 2024 22:00:26 +0000 <![CDATA[ 1st astronaut launch of Boeing's Starliner delayed to May 17 to replace 'buzzing' rocket valve ]]> The first-ever crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule has been delayed an additional week, thanks to a "buzzing" valve on its rocket ride.

That launch, which will kick off a mission known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was originally supposed to take place Monday night (May 6) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

The launch team called that attempt off about two hours before the planned liftoff, however, after noticing that an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage was "buzzing" — opening and closing very rapidly. ULA, Boeing and NASA initially pushed CFT's liftoff back to no earlier than Friday (May 10), but that's no longer the plan.

ULA has decided to replace the valve, which will require rolling the Starliner-Atlas V stack off the launch pad and back to an assembly building. As as result, CFT's launch is now targeted for no earlier than May 17, NASA announced in an update on Tuesday (May 7).

A May 17 launch, should it go forward, would occur at 6:16 p.m. EDT (2216 GMT). Whenever Starliner flies, you can watch the action live here at Space.com.

CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay. CFT is a shakeout cruise designed to show that Starliner is ready to fly operational, six-month crewed missions to the orbiting lab.

After Wilmore and Williams disembarked from Starliner on Monday evening and headed back to their crew quarters at nearby Kennedy Space Center, ULA teams began testing and analyzing the troublesome valve.

Technicians "successfully commanded the valve closed, and the oscillations were temporarily dampened," NASA officials wrote in Tuesday's update.

"The oscillations then re-occurred twice during fuel removal operations," they added. "After evaluating the valve history, data signatures from the launch attempt, and assessing the risks relative to continued use, the ULA team determined the valve exceeded its qualification, and mission managers agreed to remove and replace the valve."

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

Boeing developed Starliner under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. SpaceX got a similar deal worth $2.6 billion at the same time for work on its Dragon capsule.

SpaceX flew its version of CFT, a two-astronaut test flight called Demo-2, back in 2020. The company has completed seven long-term astronaut missions to the ISS for NASA and is in the middle of its eighth, which is known, appropriately enough, as Crew-8.

]]> https://www.space.com/starliner-first-astronaut-launch-delay-may-17-replace-valve 2QCwrVQMHDAyjBcPC5E3SM Wed, 08 May 2024 10:00:01 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'Buzzing' rocket valve pushes 1st astronaut launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule to May 10 ]]> The first crewed flight of Boeing's new Starliner capsule has been pushed to the end of the week due to a technical issue.

Starliner was supposed to launch late Monday night (May 6) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a roughly 10-day mission that will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and back. But mission teams called the attempt off about two hours before Monday's planned liftoff, after identifying a faulty "oxygen relief valve" on the upper stage of Starliner's rocket ride, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V. The valve was "buzzing," opening and closing rapidly, during the launch countdown, forcing the delay, ULA officials said.

NASA, ULA and Boeing initially expressed optimism that the issue could be resolved quickly, perhaps even in time for another launch attempt on Tuesday night (May 7). But, early Tuesday morning, the teams announced that CFT will lift off no earlier than Friday night (May 10).

"The delay allows teams to complete data analysis on a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank of the Atlas V rocket's Centaur upper stage and determine whether it is necessary to replace the valve," NASA officials wrote in an update on Tuesday.

A launch on Friday would occur at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on May 11). There's an additional backup opportunity on Saturday (May 11), NASA officials said. Whenever CFT launches, you can watch the action here at Space.com.

It's too soon to know if Starliner and the Atas V will be ready to fly on Friday or Saturday, however. That depends on whether ULA decides to replace the valve, which would require rolling the rocket off the launch pad and back to its assembly facility.

Teams would then apply "tooling to support the Centaur, and the Starliner on top, and then we'd take off all the pressure and simply remove and replace the valve, pressurize it, remove the tooling, and then we'd be ready to roll back," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post-scrub press conference on Monday night.

"That procedure takes several days," he added. So, if valve replacement turns out to be necessary, "it's unlikely we would be prepared to make another attempt before Sunday."

CFT's two crewmembers are NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. After the scrub was announced, both astronauts disembarked from Starliner and headed back to the crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, agency officials said.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

In 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS.

SpaceX has been doing so since 2020 with its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; Elon Musk's company has already completed seven such operational crewed flights for NASA and is in the middle of mission number eight. Boeing, however, has experienced numerous delays in Starliner's development and has yet to launch a crew.

]]> https://www.space.com/starliner-crew-flight-test-launch-delay-may-10 ftEJMrC3tvEmZqjZHsZDHQ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:00:01 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing Starliner's historic 1st astronaut launch delayed by Atlas V rocket issue ]]>

CAPE CANAVERAL — Starliner will wait at least four more days for its first crewed launch.

Boeing's new commercial spacecraft, Starliner, waved off its first launch attempt late tonight (May 6) due to a problem with an "oxygen relief valve on the Centaur Stage on the Atlas V," NASA posted on X. Atlas V, the flight's rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, has flown missions since 2002 with a 100 percent success rate, but this is its first mission with astronauts.

"The engineering team has evaluated the vehicle is not in a configuration where we can proceed with flight today," an official in Mission Control said in a callout broadcast on NASA Television roughly two hours and one minute before the scheduled launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0024 GMT May 7).

Friday (May 10) is not the earliest possible launch target, according to NASA. When Starliner flies, you can watch the event here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

a large white rocket sits vertical on a launch pad at night — The Atlas V rocket topped with Starliner on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Once it goes to space, Starliner will carry its first astronaut crew to the International Space Station: Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams. They are both former U.S. Navy test pilots as well as veteran International Space Station long-duration astronauts; their new Starliner mission is expected to spend about a week at the orbiting complex.

When Wilmore and Williams fly to space, they will be the first crew to do so from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station since Apollo 7 in 1968. They will also be the first humans to fly to space aboard an Atlas rocket since Gordon Cooper did so on Mercury-Atlas 9 in 1963.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

NASA aims to have Starliner up and running for operational missions next year to meet its longstanding goal of sending two different spacecraft aloft from U.S. soil. The agency's other commercial crew vendor, SpaceX, has been sending crews to the ISS since its first test launch in 2020.

Space.com will provide further updates on the situation when NASA, Boeing or ULA issue them.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 2 a.m. EDT on May 7 with news of the new target launch date of May 10.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-1st-launch-attempt-scrub ohHET9rAyEHjC6ZSnp8nXQ Tue, 07 May 2024 01:15:23 +0000 <![CDATA[ Starliner's Mission Control team 'very excited' for capsule's 1st-ever astronaut launch (exclusive) ]]> Update, 9 p.m. EDT: Boeing Starliner's launch has been scrubbed due to a valve issue on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Here is the link to our scrub story.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — When Boeing's Starliner capsule carries two astronauts to space tonight (May 6), at least 100 people in Mission Control will be on hand for support and guidance.

Tonight's mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be the first-ever crewed liftoff for Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) at 10:34 p.m. (0234 GMT Tuesday, May 7) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here. You can watch it live here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

But not all the action is in Florida: Boeing and NASA are working together at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston to send this crew into space, marking the first time since the space shuttle era that a crewed spacecraft was controlled from Houston.

Among Starliner's vast support group is Teresa Kinney, the first-ever female chief engineer at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Florida's Space Coast. Kinney will sit as backup to Mission Control as a consultant for other engineers. While talented, some of the main controllers "jumped in late" compared to Kinney, she told Space.com. "So if you had a problem that they hadn't seen, or maybe some testing they hadn't been involved in, hopefully I can provide that continuity," she added.

Kinney has been working with NASA's Commercial Crew Program for years, mainly on the Starliner side; in fact, she has been on commercial crew since the days of the Constellation program. That was a Bush-era proposal from the early 2000s, later repealed, that also aimed to send astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars.

Kinney said her role evolved as the Commercial Crew Program did, as the hardware matured and testing continued. Contracts were first awarded in 2010, and both SpaceX and Boeing were selected in 2014 as the first commercial crew vendors to send astronauts to space.

"You never know what you don't know when you start developing hardware and doing tests and stuff," Kinney told Space.com at KSC. "As I started out, we are setting up verifications and asking, 'What is this thing going to look like? How are we going to do tests and analysis?' "

Models were complicated, as multiple partners were involved, including Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance (which is launching CFT with its Atlas V rocket). And both SpaceX and Boeing have experienced technical issues with their programs — involving parachute systems, for example — that had to be addressed as their spacecraft evolved.

a cone-shaped rocket in a facility with door open to the right — The Boeing Starliner spacecraft for Crew Flight Test sits atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket (not visible) shortly before its rollout to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance/X)

Starliner, Kinney acknowledged, has had to deal with more issues than SpaceX's Dragon: The first Starliner flight to ISS failed to reach its destination in 2019 due to software glitches, although the follow-up uncrewed effort in 2022 got there after fixes were implemented. New issues were found in 2023 that further pushed back CFT, including with the parachutes and with flammable tape found wrapped around capsule wiring.

"The vehicle was actually a good design, but the problem is that it was a paper design," Kinney said. SpaceX, she pointed out, had a head start on its Crew Dragon spacecraft, as the company was already flying a cargo Dragon variant on robotic resupply missions to the ISS before launching its first crewed test flight in 2020. SpaceX has sent 11 other crews to ISS since then.

Boeing, by contrast, "literally was doing something new" with Starliner, she said. The company was working to leverage what it knew from past programs; Boeing was the prime contractor for the ISS, for example, and also builds the core stage for NASA's Space Launch System megarocket, which successfully launched the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission toward lunar orbit in late 2022.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

But new lessons had to be learned as Starliner took on its first steps in space. Kinney said the questions that arose there are similar to what she has encountered in other programs: "You go, 'Well, what do I have to change? What should I change?' And so that was a lot of what they were doing."

Kinney cautioned that she cannot speak for everybody in Mission Control, but the folks she spoke with "are very excited" to see CFT get off the ground. The teams have "scrubbed through all their systems" to get ready for key flight review milestones ahead of liftoff, and continue to do preparations and simulations to get the astronauts safely off the ground.

"I love it when you work with a team that is so focused on the right things," Kinney said. "There's no shrinking violets in the group as far as safety and stuff. So I think it's going to be as good as we can can make it."

]]> https://www.space.com/starliner-mission-support-safety-1st-astronaut-launch R2hwVuqfq7UFMBTnZCLWgm Mon, 06 May 2024 20:00:37 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's Starliner launch will be the 1st astronaut flight on an Atlas V rocket. How did NASA and ULA get it ready for crews? (exclusive) ]]> Update, 9 p.m. EDT: Boeing Starliner's launch has been scrubbed due to a valve issue on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Here is the link to our scrub story.

CAPE CANAVERAL — Atlas V is a venerable rocket, but it's about to break new territory: Carrying humans instead of uncrewed missions on board.

United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket has been in service for two decades, carrying missions like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission to asteroid Bennu since 2002. But as soon as today (May 6) its task is to send two NASA astronauts on board Boeing Starliner.

That mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) at 10:34 p.m. (0234 GMT Tuesday, May 7). And it was not an easy task to make sure Atlas V was ready to carry them from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"It was between 11,000 and 12,000 verifications that had to be looked at and assessed by our team," Ian Kappes, deputy manager for the launch vehicle system for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told Space.com during an interview here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, nearby the launch pad. "If you asked me, 'How do you know that you're ready?' That's how I know I'm ready. We worked as one team, to just power through and look at this vehicle."

Kappes has been with the commercial crew program since 2014, working his way up from avionics software to his current position. Previous uncrewed launches of Starliner in 2019 and 2022 helped "buy off risk" for CFT's launch opportunity, he said, but making sure the human rating stuck required examining data that was sometimes 20 or 25 years old.

"Some of it was hand calculations; I kid you not," he said, as the ULA team examined data and re-imagined it for astronauts on board. Questions arose about matters such as the abort system, vehicle accelerations and avionics, among many other matters.

two astronauts in spacesuits in a simulator looking at screens — NASA astronauts Suni Williams (foreground) and Butch Wilmore wearing Boeing spacesuits in the Starliner spacecraft simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center during emergency training on Nov. 3, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz)

While ULA has flown Atlas V with 100 percent success since the debut launch in 2002, Kappes said the team does not "want to slide into the stance of, 'You've flown so many. So you're good to go.' Right? Because that you can get into that trap real quick."

Each item was therefore checked against NASA standards for human spaceflight requirements. The ascent phase required discussion about guidance and navigation, flight mechanics, loads on the spacecraft and of course aborts, Kim Ess, manager of the integrated performance office in NASA's Commercial Crew Program, also told Space.com.

"When we launch, we want the ascent trajectory to be correct; to get us where we want to go, and that the staging occurs at the right location, and that there's no harm to the public, or the crew or the station. Those are our priorities," she said.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

Even the crew access tower, which has been worked on for nearly a decade, was newer infrastructure that had to also meet stringent requirements from Space Force as that is where the tower is used.

A lot of the discussion was making sure that not only that safety was met, but the safety requirements of NASA and Space Force aligned in such a way to make that possible, Crystal Jones, manager of the commercial crew program's ground and mission operations office, told Space.com.

With launch now hours away, "Just feel a little surreal, honestly, that we're here. We all worked so hard to get to this point," Jones said. "We're finally here, and we're ready. I think everyone's really confident in our mission."

Jones said that during a recent flight test readiness review, the team felt an "uncomfortable nervousness" because they are so close to launch after a long journey. "But it's a good thing, because it causes us to really dig deep and make sure that we're ready. I think we are. I think the whole team is confident that we're ready to fly."

]]> https://www.space.com/atlas-v-starliner-astronauts-rocket-build kBGHViqcjTr3LfqLfV6tGH Mon, 06 May 2024 18:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing Starliner rolls out to launch pad for 1st astronaut flight on May 6 (photos) ]]> CAPE CANAVERAL — May the rocket's Force be with you!

An Atlas V rocket rolled out to its launch pad on Saturday (May 4), also Star Wars Day, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station days before its historic first mission with astronauts. Atop the United Launch Alliance booster was Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which will also make its debut flight with humans onboard after launching no earlier than Monday (May 6).

The instantaneous launch window opens at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) and you can watch the historic International Space Station (ISS) mission live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA Television.

The mission, called Crew Flight Test (CFT), will send two veteran NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots aloft: Butch Wilmore will command the mission and Suni Williams will be the pilot. The duo are quarantining at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

I joined a group of about 35 reporters on a small hill about a mile away from Space Launch Complex 41 for my first-ever Floridian rocket rollout in which the booster was always going the right way towards the pad.

a person in a shirt with stars wars spacecraft facing a rocket and building, far in the background — A photographer festooned in Star Wars gear watches Boeing Starliner, atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, make its way to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 4, 2024. (Image credit: Elizabeth Howell)

Back in August 2006, I made an attempt to see mission STS-115 fly to the ISS. Then life happened. During my flight from Canada to the Space Coast, space shuttle Atlantis's launch pad was hit by lightning. As NASA took time to double-check all systems, Tropical Storm Ernesto made its way up the coast.

So instead of a launch, I witnessed Atlantis being pulled back towards shelter — and then pause in its path to the Vehicle Assembly Building, and get pulled back to the launch pad when the tropical storm shifted far enough away to make that the safe choice. I definitely missed that launch, but no regrets, as that situation was a pretty unique one.

a smiling woman in a large hat and sunglasses. she points across the road to a rocket and launch pad far in the background — Space.com staff writer Elizabeth Howell points towards a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, stacked with Boeing Starliner, as the rocket makes its way to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 4, 2024. (Image credit: Elizabeth Howell)

Starliner's presence here two decades later is also unique, as the first spacecraft to bring astronauts to space from the Cape Canaveral side since Apollo 7 on Oct. 11, 1968.

And no human has ridden any Atlas rocket since Gordon Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9 mission on May 15, 1963 (almost exactly 61 years before Starliner's CFT launch attempt.)

If CFT goes to plan, Boeing will soon join SpaceX in sending astronauts for six months at a time to the ISS. That's after both companies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014, valuing Boeing's at $4.2 billion back then, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

a rocket beside a tall building with clouds in the background — Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, makes its way towards the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 4, 2024. Beside it is a ULA stacking facility. (Image credit: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images)

While SpaceX has sent 12 crewed missions to ISS since 2020, including an astronaut test flight, Starliner's waited four extra years. Boeing's first ISS flight in December 2019 was dogged with so many computer glitches that Starliner never made it to its assigned orbit. After the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, and dozens of fixes were implemented, and Starliner at last made a successful second uncrewed test flight in May 2022.

CFT was also expected to launch earlier, most recently 2023. Critical issues found last year delayed that, however, as Boeing officials sought to address issues with the loads on the capsule's main parachutes, as well as wiring covered in flammable tape.

NASA and Boeing have carefully gone over all details ahead of this flight and maintained at a press conference Friday (May 3) that all is ready to go safety-wise. Weather is also 95% go for Monday's launch attempt on the Space Coast; that said, checks for proper technical fit and good weather will continue up to the moment of liftoff.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

The spacecraft's first operational mission will be Starliner-1, no earlier than 2025, and it will send at least three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who is also serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk (the capcom for CFT's ascent phase.)

NASA plans to alternate SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner in sending up astronauts at least every six months from U.S. soil. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft will also continue to send some agency astronauts aloft, for technical and policy reasons.

While NASA aims to have these commercial crew vehicles working past the lifetime of ISS, the orbiting complex is expected to finish operations in 2030. Russia may pull out as soon as 2028, although all timelines are subject to flux as the countries work on implementing next-generation space programs.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-crew-flight-test-launch-pad-rollout rWFPdrmAeBGzEQGocfr4zk Sat, 04 May 2024 17:35:50 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing Starliner spacecraft 'go' for 1st astronaut launch on May 6, NASA says ]]> CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The new Starliner spacecraft is "go" for its first-ever astronaut launch on Monday (May 6), Boeing and NASA officials announced today (May 3).

Barring bad weather or any last-minute technical issues, Starliner was cleared to send two veteran NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots to the International Space Station (ISS). On board this mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.

The duo are completing last-minute training items and quarantining here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center ahead of their historic liftoff, which is scheduled for Mondauy at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Coverage will run live here on Space.com, via NASA Television.

"We had the launch readiness review, and everyone polled 'go' to proceed," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference today.

CFT will not only be the first time that Boeing's Starliner carries astronauts, but also the first time that United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket takes on that task. Rollout of the stacked rocket will take place tomorrow (May 4).

Pending the success of CFT, Boeing will join SpaceX in sending operational, six-month-long crewed missions to the ISS. Both companies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014, with Boeing's valued at $4.2 billion back then, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

SpaceX has since launched 12 crewed missions to the ISS, including a test flight in 2020, while Starliner's first crewed effort has been delayed by several issues. The Boeing vehicle's first uncrewed flight to the ISS, which launched in December 2019, failed to reach its destination due to technical glitches. The pandemic, and the need to address the issues that arose on that first flight, delayed Starliner's second uncrewed test flight until May 2022. That effort was successful, reaching the ISS and meeting all of its other major objectives.

CFT was then slated to launch in 2023 — until more critical issues were uncovered, such as problems with the capsule's main parachutes and flammable tape on the capsule's wiring. These issues are behind the team, everyone has emphasized, and CFT is ready to go. If this first astronaut flight goes well, the debut operational crewed mission of Starliner should follow in 2025.

NASA and Boeing teams conducted a flight readiness review for CFT last week. That analysis identified two issues that required more attention: a valve needed to be replaced at the launch pad, and engineers wanted to further study contingency scenarios for the jettisoning of Starliner's forward heat shield during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.

That work has now been completed to the teams' satisfaction, Stich said today.

— Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say

— 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

Starliner-1, the capsule's first operational mission, is slated to send three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who is also serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

But that is pending the success of CFT, which will see Williams and Wilmore take manual control of the spacecraft numerous times, test emergency procedures for power-up and communications, and otherwise put the Starliner spacecraft through its paces for future missions.

The vision from NASA is for SpaceX's Dragon, Starliner and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to continue sending astronaut crews to the ISS for the next several years. A selection of NASA astronauts continue to use Soyuz for policy and backup reasons, and Russia has committed to sending crews aloft until at least 2028.

While Starliner is not manifested for private missions yet, Boeing will fulfill something like six or seven missions for NASA during the nominal lifetime of ISS to 2030. A handful of private space stations are in the works, so there may still be destinations for Starliner, Dragon and Soyuz after the ISS retires.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-crew-flight-test-prelaunch-press-conference ryxhA7XM3DoueE4TUM2DvU Fri, 03 May 2024 18:22:34 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's Starliner is ready to fly astronauts after years of delay. Here's what took so long. ]]> HOUSTON — Everyone thought Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft would already have flown astronauts sooner by now.

Starliner is ready to carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time no earlier than Monday (May 6), but it's been a long road to get here. Instead of one uncrewed test mission to the ISS, Boeing needed two to meet its objectives. The pandemic and numerous technical issues further delayed the capsule's first astronaut launch.

But safety always needs to come first, NASA and Boeing officials emphasized during a media briefing on March 22 here at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Through years of extra work, the teams worked carefully towards their objective of launching astronauts. And when new problems arose, they would continue to work to resolve them, Boeing's Mark Nappi said to reporters.

"I don't call it frustrating at all," Nappi, program manager of Boeing's commercial crew program, said of the longer-than-expected wait. "We would like to have been further along at this time. There's no doubt about that. But we're here, and we're prepared, and we're ready to fly."

The first Starliner mission with astronauts, called Crew Flight Test or CFT, will send two veteran NASA astronauts and former Navy test pilots to the ISS: commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams. They will be in space for a bit over a week after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

The astronauts will put their decades of space and aviation experience to use, performing thorough checkouts of the spacecraft and making sure it meets all major objectives for automatic and manual flying. If Starliner passes all of its CFT tests, the way will be clear for operational, six-month Starliner ISS missions, starting with Starliner-1 in 2025.

CFT follows two uncrewed flights by Starliner. A December 2019 mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), did not reach the ISS as planned. Boeing spent several years implementing dozens of fixes to the spacecraft, amid the pandemic, and succeeded: a 2022 attempt (OFT 2) reached the ISS and met all other major flight objectives.

More trouble arose in summer 2023, however, when teams uncovered new issues with Starliner that further delayed human spaceflight. For example: the suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes couldn't handle as much mass as engineers thought they could, and flammable P213 tape covered much of the capsule's wiring.

spacecraft under parachutes landing in front of the mountains, in a desert — Boeing's Starliner capsule comes down for a safe landing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on May 25, 2022 following Orbital Flight Test 2. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Both NASA and Boeing's representatives at the March 22 briefing emphasized that the two test flights did their job: they caught problems before people climbed on board. Steve Stich, head of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters that he closely involved the astronauts of CFT and Starliner-1 to address all issues.

"From my perspective, so far, it seems like we've looked through everything," Stich said. "We've done, in many cases, independent analysis ... of landing loads, abort performance, rendezvous and docking, all those sorts of things. And I would say in the timeframe that we've had from last summer to now, we've really spent that time testing the flight software in a very integrated manner in the Boeing ASIL [Avionics and Software Integration Lab] Facility."

two people sitting in a simulator looking at screens. behind them a person stands watching — From left, Boeing Starliner flight crew integration manager Tony Ceccacci and NASA Crew Flight Test astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams participate in a mission rehearsal at Boeing's Avionics and Software Integration Lab in Houston. (Image credit: Boeing/Steven Siceloff)

"We've done everything we can to make sure we're not missing things," Stich added. "I tend to ask a lot of questions. I'm kind of a more of a hands-on, I would say, program manager. Maybe a little bit of an engineer at heart. So I try to probe in areas to make sure that we haven't missed something.

"The last parachute test gave us a heck of a lot of confidence in that system," he continued. "We had more instrumentation, I would say, on that parachute test than we've had in the past, looking at the dynamics of how the parachutes actually come out of the parachute compartment — and computed the margins on those parachutes and have a lot of confidence in that system.

"What we do every day is to make sure you haven't missed something. Spaceflight is so complicated. I think we take it one step at a time, looking at all the data. We've closed out all the in-flight anomalies from OFT to our satisfaction. And now we're going to go through that [CFT] flight readiness process."

two astronauts in flight suits working inside a spacecraft simulator — NASA astronauts Suni Williams (foreground) and Butch Wilmore wearing Boeing spacesuits in the Starliner spacecraft simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center during emergency training on Nov. 3, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz)

While all Starliner systems are under scrutiny, one to especially highlight for CFT is the life support system that provides oxygen to the astronauts and removes carbon dioxide, among other tasks. That system hasn't been tested with people on board, but the briefing participants emphasized there has been robust ground testing to get ready for the spaceflight.

Stich said a recent integrated test with the astronauts at Boeing's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, located at KSC, allowed Williams and Wilmore to "put it [the life support system] through its paces a little bit." He said the test "gave us a lot of good data, and confidence that ecosystem will perform as we need to with Suni and Butch on board."

Nappi pointed to icing in the thermal control system during the uncrewed OFT, which "probably stemmed more from not having crew on board." Boeing, however, "made some changes during this last flow to make sure that doesn't happen again."

Adding crew to the vehicle will generate more heat during spaceflight than flying Starliner without humans on board, he said. Boeing will be evaluating Starliner to see how the vehicle's cooling system responds to that, whether humidity will stay constant, and other possible impacts.

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

In 2014, both Boeing and SpaceX won NASA contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS, to fill the shoes of the agency's space shuttle, which retired in 2011. Boeing's contract is valued at $4.2 billion, while SpaceX's is worth $2.6 billion.

SpaceX has sent 11 operational crewed missions to the ISS with its Crew Dragon so far: eight for NASA's commercial crew program, and three shorter-term missions on behalf of Houston-based company Axiom Space.

A handful of NASA astronauts also fly aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for technical and policy reasons, following long-established interagency practice. All NASA astronauts also flew to the ISS on Soyuz after the shuttle's retirement in 2011 and SpaceX's first crewed mission, the Demo-2 test flight, in 2020.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-delays-not-frustrating-1st-iss-launch sigA3V9BtkeF8kSwgG7JiK Fri, 03 May 2024 10:00:19 +0000 <![CDATA[ Watch ULA assemble Atlas V rocket ahead of Boeing Starliner astronaut test flight (video) ]]>

The long-awaited Crewed Flight Test (CFT) of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is finally upon us.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch Starliner with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a shakedown mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 6. This will be Starliner's third flight, but the capsule's first with a crew aboard.

With the spacecraft day's away from its crewed debut, ULA has released a short video highlighting how Starliner's Atlas V launch vehicle was stacked and integrated with the spacecraft.

a large white rocket on a launchpad at sunset — United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket topped with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. (Image credit: ULA via YouTube)

ULA posted the video on X, formerly Twitter, a week before Starliner's scheduled launch, with the caption, "Reigniting Atlas' legacy of launching humans to space, ULA is using an #AtlasV rocket to launch the Crew Flight Test. Check out how the Atlas V rocket was stacked ahead of next week's launch."

With Starliner ready for flight, the video lays out ULA's process for assembling and stacking the Atlas V rocket, mating it with the Starliner spacecraft, rolling the stack to SLC-41, and other significant milestones leading up to the moment of launch.

Atlas V is powered by two RD-180 rocket engines, paired for this flight with two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The launch vehicle's first stage stands 106.5 feet (32.5 meters) tall, and is joined with its Centaur upper stage, propelled by a pair of RL-10A rocket engines. Combined with Starliner, the whole rocket stands at 172 feet (52.4 meters).

The trio are stacked inside ULA's vertical integration facility (VIF) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, and are scheduled to roll out the SLC-41 at 10 a.m. this Saturday, May 4.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 spacecraft lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on May 19, 2022. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

Reigniting Atlas' legacy of launching humans to space, ULA is using an #AtlasV rocket to launch the Crew Flight Test. Check out how the Atlas V rocket was stacked ahead of next week's launch #Starliner #CFTWatch on YouTube: https://t.co/9lthxHUAYT pic.twitter.com/Ow8Ionny1mApril 30, 2024

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

ULA's video also points out some of the fueling and crew boarding procedures during the mission's launch countdown. Wilmore and Williams will arrive at the launchpad about three hours prior to liftoff, aided by ULA's "Blue Team," as mission operators run through prelaunch checklists leading up to liftoff.

Starliner is scheduled to launch Monday, May 6, at 10:34 p.m. EDT, and will rendezvous with the ISS May 8, at 12:48 a.m. EDT (0648 GMT). During the shakedown flight, Wilmore and Williams will test the gamut of Starliner's systems, spending about 10 days on the space station before returning to Earth.

This mission will be Starliner's third flight. In 2019, the first of Starliner's uncrewed test flights failed to complete its mission of rendezvousing with the ISS due to software issues. Another launch in 2022 managed to meet all NASA and Boeing's major objectives for the spacecraft. However, after discovering the flammable nature of the tape used around much of Starliner's internal wiring, the crewed launch was further delayed.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-starliner-cft-atlas-v-stacking-video oinygRVrpPRjXHFncMJgS7 Thu, 02 May 2024 17:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Here's what to expect during Boeing Starliner's 1st astronaut test flight on May 6 ]]> HOUSTON — A busy week is ahead of the first Starliner astronauts after their scheduled launch on May 6.

Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams will be the first NASA crew to fly to space aboard Boeing Starliner. Their mission, known as Crew Flight Test, will run for about a week at the International Space Station (ISS) to certify Starliner for future missions to last six months or so.

Boeing and SpaceX received contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions to the ISS. Boeing's contract for the Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. Despite the lower contract amount, SpaceX beat Boeing to the space station and has been running operational ISS missions since 2020. Starliner ran two uncrewed test flights in 2019 and 2022, but astronaut flights were delayed due to several technical problems that officials say are all resolved now.

There are several key milestones to look for after the Starliner astronauts launch to space at Cape Canaveral, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida. The teams shared those milestones with reporters during a media tour here, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, on March 22. Here are some of the big events of the mission that the astronauts and their support teams on the ground will be getting ready for.

Launch

The final hours before launch of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will be busy, NASA Starliner flight director Mike Lammers told reporters during a briefing at JSC. The crew will suit up in their quarantine facility at KSC and do the traditional crew walkout outside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building. They will arrive at the pad 2 hours and 15 minutes before launch and go inside Starliner.

The spacecraft will be transferred to internal power at 80 minutes before launch, and ground teams will then do a leak check on the spacecraft 50 minutes before launch. Next, the crew access arms will be retracted 11 minutes before launch.

The last four minutes will be particularly busy, with numerous callouts, but a notable one is when the launch abort system will be armed about 75 seconds before launch.

"It's already been a busy day, but then we have liftoff. That's where my real work starts," Lammers said, noting this will be the first crewed ascent flown out of Mission Control at JSC since the final space shuttle mission, STS-135, in 2011. (SpaceX has its own mission control operations in Hawthorne, California.)

illustration of two rocket stages separating in earth's atmosphere far above a cloud layer — This artist's illustration shows the special “aeroskirt” that will help smooth the Boeing Starliner capsule’s ride to space on Dec. 20, 2019. The white, 70-inch (178 centimeters) aeroskirt is integrated into the Launch Vehicle Adapter, which links Starliner with its Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage. (Image credit: ULA)

Atlas V is equipped with two solid rocket boosters or SRBs. Shortly after leaving the pad, the rocket will begin maneuvering to adjust its trajectory towards orbit. The SRBs will burn for about 90 seconds, and once spent, their empty casings will keep riding with the core stage until 2.5 minutes after launch. They will be then released and Atlas V will continue its first-stage burn until four minutes after launch.

"There's about a 15-second pause as the first stage separates [a] cover that covers a docking system," Lammers explained. Atlas V will also discard a special "aeroskirt," a 70-inch-long (178 centimeters) structure integrated into the Launch Vehicle Adapter that links Starliner up with the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage.

Then the second stage will light, with two RL-10 engines on that Centaur stage bringing the crew into space. The second stage will shut off 12 minutes after launch, and the spacecraft will separate 15 minutes after launch.

"We're suborbital still here," Lammers continued, "so we've got to do another burn." The burns for orbit will happen twice, at 31 minutes and at 1 hour and 15 minutes into the mission. Next will come the approach and docking to ISS.

If necessary, several abort sites will be on standby underneath the launch path: The pad area around Florida; an ocean zone east of Cape Cod in the Atlantic Ocean; a second ocean zone further east near St. John's, Newfoundland; and the ocean west of Shannon, Ireland.

ISS cruise

a roughly cone-shaped spacecraft floats above earth — Illustration of Boeing Starliner in space with Earth in the background. (Image credit: Boeing)

Once the launch is finished, NASA flight director Ed Van Cise joked at the same press conference, one would think it would be "a great, relaxing ride to the space station."

While operational missions aim to be that way, that cannot the case for the first Starliner as the astronauts will be doing tests for both nominal scenarios, and off-nominal scenarios.

"We're be doing things like purposely pointing it in an orientation that's say, not exactly the normal orientation for the mission, and then having the crew manually fly the spacecraft back into the direction it should be pointing," he said. "We also want to make sure that if for some reason the vehicle doesn't know where the communication satellites are located, that crew can manually fly the spacecraft to point the antennas at the satellite."

The astronauts will also "trick" the spacecraft "into thinking that it doesn't know where it is in space," Van Cise said, after which the crew will manually fly the spacecraft using a star tracker. The stars would be used to rebuild the navigation system of Starliner if anything were to go awry.

On top of these tests will be checkouts of avionics and thrusters, and having the crew do far more manual flying than required during a normal mission. The orientation of the spacecraft will also be changed to point Starliner's solar arrays towards the sun, to practice the procedure for recharging batteries if ever needed.

Following a crew sleep period, Wilmore and Williams will be roughly 1,240 miles (2,000 km) from the ISS and will then make a rendezvous and docking.

ISS docking

a grey-and-blue cone approaches a large white cylinder floating above earth — Illustration of Boeing Starliner approaching the International Space Station for a docking. (Image credit: Boeing)

Starliner must approach the ISS within a seven-degree angle of safety. The spacecraft is designed to dock autonomously, but Williams and Wilmore are also trained to take over manually should that be needed.

"During approach, rendezvous, and docking with the station, the Starliner team will assess spacecraft thruster performance for manual abort scenarios, conduct communication checkouts, test manual and automated navigation, and evaluate life support systems. Crew aboard the station will monitor the spacecraft's approach and the Starliner crew would command any necessary aborts," NASA officials wrote of the procedure.

"Starliner will autonomously dock to the forward-facing port of the Harmony module," the agency added. "The test objective is to perform hatch opening and closing operations, configure the spacecraft for its time docked to the station, and transfer emergency equipment into the station."

ISS mission

"Our main goals of the docking mission are ... practice and validate the plan operations for long-duration missions," NASA flight director Vincent LaCourt said at the same press conference at JSC. The crew will also practice for contingencies and perform cargo operations.

The first hours after docking will include opening the hatches, going on to the space station and performing a welcome ceremony that will run on NASA Television. The ISS crew will then give the Starliner astronauts a safety briefing, and the approximately one-week mission will begin.

On the second day of docking, all the cargo will be unloaded and Starliner will be put into a "quiescent" mode, meaning extra computers will be powered off while essential equipment like lights, displays and ventilation will run as needed.

Read more: How to watch Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch webcasts live online

a cone-shaped spacecraft visible through a space station window. earth is in the background — Boeing's Starliner space capsule docked at the International Space Station during a 2022 uncrewed test flight. (Image credit: ESA)

Day 3 of docking will be a "safe haven" practice. The Starliner crew will practice an emergency run to their spacecraft, including a power-up, in case of future ISS situations that may need them (like a meteorite strike or fire.) Since operational crews would have four astronauts and not two, Wilmore and Williams will "borrow" two ISS crew members to join them.

"We'll go into Starliner, they'll close the hatch [and] basically completely power up the vehicle on their own to practice if they're getting ready for an emergency undock and return," LaCourt said.

On Day 4 of docking, the crew will do a complete power-up of Starliner and make sure the equipment is working. From there, the mission plan may change depending on how long Starliner remains docked at the station.

While the crew could leave as early as Day 8 of docking, extra days on the mission would allow them to pick up ISS tasks to help the main crew — and take some extra time off to rest ahead of landing. Before undocking, the crew will do a farewell event on television, don their spacesuits and close the hatch for departure.

Undocking, re-entry and landing

a cone-shaped spacecraft approaches earth as it is enveloped in an aura of fire — Illustration of Boeing Starliner streaking through Earth's atmosphere with fiery trails visible. (Image credit: Boeing)

Undocking will be timed for 6.5 hours after landing, with the crew expected to move to the zenith of the ISS before turning on the engines for a departure burn.

Unlike a normal mission, the crew will briefly take manual control of the spacecraft during the cruise home to continue testing. "I like to call [this] stick and rudder flying; in fact, they can even deorbit and land in that mode," Lammers said. The crew will evaluate how the spacecraft performs in manual operations, and how that compares with the simulators in which they practiced procedures before the launch.

After a couple of orbits of Earth, the crew will finally execute a deorbit burn over the Pacific Ocean. Starliner's primary landing zone is White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with two backup areas available: Willcox Playa east of Tucson, Arizona and Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City.

black and white video of a cone-shaped spacecraft touching down in the desert under 3 parachutes — Boeing's Starliner space capsule touching down after a successful test flight in 2022. (Image credit: NASA)

The prime landing time is at night due to weather constraints. The main constraints are low winds that are less than 10 knots and cool temperatures to protect the landing teams that will be wearing special safety suits to protect against potential leaks on the spacecraft, Lammers said. Infrared tracking and lighting will help with the darkness.

The crew will point their heat shield at the atmosphere for re-entry. Around 30,000 feet (9 km) high, the crew will jettison that heat shield and then deploy their parachute drogues. The three main chutes will deploy at 8,000 feet (2.5 km). Touchdown will happen in the desert, shortly after the airbags deploy.

A landing team will be on site, roughly 3 miles (5 km) away to avoid any falling pieces from the spacecraft. The astronauts will throw a switch to jettison their chutes, as the landing team makes their approach. Once the landing team arrives at the spacecraft, they will do brief safety check and then remove the crew. Both astronauts will be assessed medically in the field before being flown back to Houston for normal post-flight medical checks, debriefings and operations.

What's next

two astronauts in flight suits giving a thumbs-up. in back is a large building with an american flag and the nasa patch — NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Mike Fincke at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, backdropped by the Vehicle Assembly Building. Williams is on Crew Flight Test, while Fincke will command Starliner-1. (Image credit: NASA)

The first operational mission for Starliner, known as Starliner-1, is set for early 2025 at the earliest. The crew for that mission is NASA's Scott Tingle, NASA's Mike Fincke and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk and they are already deep in training. (Kutryk will also serve as capcom for the launch phase of CFT.)

Boeing is then expected to run regular Starliner missions to the ISS, alongside SpaceX. Currently the commercial crew program aims to bring one astronaut crew to the orbiting complex every six months. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft also does the same, occasionally with NASA astronauts on board for technical and policy reasons.

The ISS is currently expected to host missions until 2030, unless upcoming commercial space stations are not yet ready. Russia has committed to missions until at least 2028, but also may extend that partnership.

As for missions outside the ISS, Boeing officials have said they want to focus on NASA obligations first before considering private Starliner missions.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronaut-1st-mission-milestones 9ZVa8WqdRqCw65cneBj863 Thu, 02 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'It almost feels unreal': NASA astronauts excited for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner launch May 6 ]]> Two NASA astronauts are days away from partaking in a new spacecraft's first-ever human launch — if schedules hold, that is.

Boeing Starliner's debut crew, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, told reporters on Wednesday (May 1) that their test pilot experience with the U.S. Navy will help them assess the spacecraft during its debut crewed launch. Liftoff is currently set for Monday (May 6) at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT May 7). The event will be livestreamed here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

"It almost feels unreal," Williams, who will serve as the mission pilot, said of the launch date during a livestreamed press conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The discussion was conducted remotely because both Williams and Wilmore are currently quarantining for the impending journey.

Williams' sentiment is due to the fact she has been in line for nearly a decade, waiting to snag a spot on a commercial crew flight; her original assignment to the related NASA program came in 2015 because of her expertise with spacecraft development. Her slot on this mission, Crew Flight Test (CFT), came in 2022. For his part, Wilmore has been in the program queue since at least 2019, initially selected as a backup for the mission before being reassigned to the CFT prime crew in October 2020.

At last, CFT appears to be within reach. Its historic liftoff will mount the duo atop the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket — another first for humans. The following week or so will include numerous tests of Starliner and a brief visit to the International Space Station (ISS).

Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, have at least 11,000 hours of collective flight experience behind them, much of it in high-performance jets. They are also both veterans of NASA's space shuttle and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft programs, have served as long-duration astronauts on past ISS missions, and have spent decades of time as trainers and supports for other astronauts besides.

"Well goodness, that's really the reason that we are here," Wilmore said when Space.com asked how the duo's test pilot experience helped with Starliner's development and preparation for CFT's checkouts in orbit. Both Wilmore and Williams are veterans of the prestigious U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and Wilmore said an exchange he had with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School has prepared him for this moment as well.

"That background of understanding test acquisition was required to certify various components ... [and] the vital importance of making sure that in an integrated fashion, everything works as planned. That's been invaluable for the process," Wilmore said of bringing his piloting work to bear on Starliner's development. Still, he noted that decades ago, "I don't think either one of us ever dreamed that we'd be associated with the first flight of a brand-new spacecraft."

two astronauts in spacesuits looking at a simulator screen — NASA astronauts Suni Williams (foreground) and Butch Wilmore wearing Boeing spacesuits in the Starliner spacecraft simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center during emergency training on Nov. 3, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz)

Having accrued thousands of hours in cockpits to evaluate high-performance aircraft, the astronauts have an instinct about the right types of questions to ask about spacecraft capabilities — for instance, why displays are showing certain kinds of information. Their experience especially has implications for understanding crucial safety maneuvers. As Williams puts it: "How is that [information] going to help me? How is that going to lead me down a wrong path, or right path?"

Manual flying, of which CFT will feature plenty to certify Starliner for future contingencies, is another reason these astronauts are on board. Aside from its extensive automatic systems, Starliner features both a rotational hand controller and a translational hand controller. These controllers are similar to what the crew has been fully entrenched with from "day one of Test Pilot School," Williams said. As such, the naval aviators can evaluate the spacecraft's handling qualities and work alongside ground teams to make sure the procedures aren't just working, but working well.

The astronauts also aim to ensure that what they see on the ground, during simulations, represents what they'd see during the real-life mission. Questions they ask in the simulator, Wilmore emphasized, include the following: "If you're testing a couple of boxes that are integrated together, what are those boxes? Are those boxes representative of what we have in the spacecraft? What's the firmware in those boxes?" Answering those questions are important to make sure "the test is representative of what the spacecraft is on orbit."

an astronaut standing beside a cone-shaped spacecraft that has a long scorch mark on it — Butch Wilmore, commander for Crew Flight Test, outside the Boeing Starliner spacecraft during a dress rehearsal on April 26, 2024. The scorch mark on the side of the spacecraft is a harmless souvenir from re-entry during an uncrewed mission known as Orbital Flight Test, in 2019. (Image credit: Mike Fincke/NASA/X)

The CFT astronauts' experience will come to the fore as Boeing seeks to join SpaceX as a regular supplier of astronaut spacecraft for long-duration stints to the ISS. Both companies received billion-dollar-scale contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions.

Boeing's contract for Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion in 2014 dollars, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. (Soyuz also continues to send some NASA astronauts aloft for policy and backup reasons, under separate NASA funding.)

SpaceX flew its first test Crew Dragon astronaut flight in 2020; 11 operational ones to ISS swiftly followed. Boeing, however, required extra time and testing. The first uncrewed Starliner test flight in 2019 failed to reach the ISS as planned after software glitches stranded the spacecraft in the wrong orbit. The second attempt in 2022 got to ISS safely, however, as dozens of implemented fixes solved the issue.

a cone-shaped spacecraft is visible through the window of a space station. behind the spacecraft is cloudy earth and the black of space — Boeing's Starliner space capsule docked at the International Space Station for the first time, during an uncrewed test in 2022. (Image credit: ESA)

CFT was then expected to fly last year, but was delayed by several months because new technical problems arose. The suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes, for example, could handle less load than engineers thought. The capsule's wiring was also revealed to be largely covered in flammable P213 tape.

Wilmore says that what others term "setbacks," however, he and the team see instead as "leaps and bounds forward." This is rooted in the nature of developmental programs like Starliner that allows problems to be fixed before humans actually climb on board, no matter the timeline. As issues arise, sometimes unanticipated ones, "we rectify that in the spacecraft."

In past press conferences, Wilmore has also emphasized the role of CFT is primarily developmental. Thus, he explains, despite all of the team's hard work, some unknowns cannot be sorted until astronauts get inside the spacecraft. Pending the mission's success, the next excursion will be much longer: Starliner-1 is expected to lift off in 2025 on the first operational, crewed six-month mission.

two astronauts in flight suits giving thumbs up outside. far behind them is a square building with a flag and nasa logo

NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Mike Fincke at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, backdropped by the Vehicle Assembly Building. Williams is pilot of Crew Flight Test, while Fincke is both backup of Crew Flight Test and commander of first operational mission Starliner-1. (Image credit: NASA)

The astronauts of Starliner-1 are also deeply integrated in CFT's training and mission operations. Starliner-1 commander and NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is serving as a backup on CFT; the other crew members for Starliner-1 are NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

Given the delays in Starliner's first astronaut test, several astronauts have either been shuffled from CFT and Starliner-1 to other missions, or reassigned between Starliner flights to meet operational requirements for NASA's space station program. So, despite their extensive flight experience that eventually brought them on CFT, both Williams and Wilmore said the "stars aligned" to put them in these seats.

two astronauts in flight suits in front of a jet with two open cockpits — NASA Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in front of a T-38 trainer at Ellington Field, nearby NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. (Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz)

— 2 astronaut taxis: Why NASA wants both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon

— NASA astronauts enter quarantine for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner launch on May 6

"It's a very humble position to be in. I'm grateful," Wilmore said of being one of the first to fly a new spacecraft. He cited the example of Apollo 16 astronaut and moonwalker John Young, a veteran of three space programs (Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle) who also was a Navy test pilot. Young's long spacecraft resume included commanding the first space shuttle test flight, STS-1, in 1981.

"To be able to follow along and do something that he did is just very humbling," said Wilmore, who briefly worked in the astronaut office at NASA's Johnson Space Center at the same time as Young (who died at age 87 in 2018). "He was a test pilot. The astronaut's astronaut, so to speak."

"I think we just want to do our job right, and do the best that we can," added Williams of the milestone mission. "Here we are on this spacecraft, for the first time that it will fly. But I think it's just a result of doing your job and being ready to take any challenge that our country, and our office, is going to give us."

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronaut-crew-flight-test-launch-press-conference fdefJdjma4vgRCpCH2hVMk Wed, 01 May 2024 20:00:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing Starliner astronauts conduct dress rehearsal ahead of May 6 launch (photos, video) ]]> Even in quarantine, the first NASA astronauts to fly aboard Boeing Starliner are still practicing their mission just a week before launch.

NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams finished a big dress rehearsal on Friday (April 26) for their mission aboard Boeing Starliner, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT). Training continues for their scheduled May 6 liftoff to the International Space Station.

With backup astronaut Mike Fincke nearby, the duo did a simulated launch near Orlando, Florida. This included donning spacesuits, driving in a new Airstream Astrovan II to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, and climbing into their spacecraft.

"As Edna Mode said, 'Luck favors the prepared'," Fincke wrote on X, formerly Twitter, quoting an iconic character from Pixar's 2004 movie "The Incredibles" about a superhero family. "We will be ready for launch day!"

Williams and Wilmore also recently performed a video tour of one of their simulators, called the Boeing Mission Trainer, to demonstrate procedures for launch and landing.

The trainer is used for emergency egress training and cargo operations at NASA Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (Building 9) in Houston, in essentially a giant warehouse full of mockup spacecraft for various astronaut missions.

Williams carefully nudged herself inside the trainer and used handholds on the ceiling to demonstrate how she and Wilmore will squeeze into their seats during launch day. "This is my seat. So I have access to all the displays and controls as well. And we'll be working side by side, together," she said in the video on NASA's Commercial Crew account on X, uploaded Friday.

"It's a pretty comfortable chair. I'm going to take a nap now," Williams joked, closing her eyes while relaxing in the seat.

a cone-shaped spacecraft on a platform. an orange crane sits nearby. to the side is an open side of the building with grass and pavement visible — The Boeing Starliner spacecraft for Crew Flight Test sits atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket (not visible) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket is inside ULA's vertical integration facility not far from Space Launch Complex 41, where the mission will launch to the International Space Station. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance/X)

Both Boeing and SpaceX received lucrative contracts from NASA in 2014 to send commercial crew missions to the ISS, after the space shuttle retired in 2011. In the interim, NASA flew all crews on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft until the first SpaceX test flight in 2020; some Americans still fly on Soyuz for technical and policy reasons, too.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon has flown 11 operational missions with astronauts to the ISS in the last four years, but Starliner met numerous technical snags. Starliner's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 did not reach its destination due to numerous software glitches. Dozens of fixes later, a second uncrewed ISS flight made it to the orbiting facility in 2022.

CFT was delayed further, however, in 2023 after Boeing and NASA uncovered new issues. Some of the most critical included problems with the main parachutes (the suspension lines carried less load than engineers thought) and wiring (largely covered with flammable P213 tape).

During a media tour at JSC in March that Space.com attended, however, Boeing and NASA officials all emphasized the spacecraft's past issues are behind them. The astronauts have also said the same, although as former U.S. Navy test pilots they also know that debut flight tests with humans will uncover new issues. "When you do test, you expect to find things. We expect to find things," Wilmore said in livestreamed remarks on NASA Television from KSC on April 25.

The Starliner spacecraft Wilmore and Williams are using has been to space once before, on that 2019 excursion known as Orbital Flight Test. It is now atop Atlas V in ULA's vertical integration facility, not far from Space Launch Complex 41 where it will launch to ISS for an approximately week-long mission.

Fincke, who will command the first operational mission to the ISS no earlier than 2025, showed off the spacecraft's harmless scorch mark from its re-entry five years ago in a picture on X, formerly Twitter. "Caught this picture of Butch [Wilmore] right before starting the crew ingress procedures with #Boeing's most excellent pad team," Fincke wrote.

an astronaut smiling beside a cone-shaped spacecraft. the spacecraft is inside a launch gantry and surrounded by stairs. a scorch mark marks the side of the spacecraft — Butch Wilmore, commander for Crew Flight Test, outside the Boeing Starliner spacecraft during a dress rehearsal on April 26, 2024. The scorch mark on the side of the spacecraft is a harmless souvenir from re-entry during an uncrewed mission known as Orbital Flight Test, in 2019. (Image credit: Mike Fincke/NASA/X)

CFT passed its latest flight readiness review on Thursday (April 25), although as with all launches, safety and weather checks will continue all the way through the time it lifts off.

After launching, Wilmore and Williams will do a number of tests to certify the Starliner spacecraft for operational missions. Procedures include a lot of manual flying in case future crews need to override the automatic systems, testing an emergency power-up using the solar panels, and simulating scenarios where a crew loses communications with Mission Control in Houston, where both Boeing and NASA officials will be working with the CFT astronauts.

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

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If CFT's flight goes to plan, Fincke will command the first operational mission (Starliner-1) in early 2025 at the earliest, for a normal half-year rotation on the ISS. Also on board Starliner-1 will be NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

The ISS is expected to keep accepting crews until 2030. SpaceX and Boeing will alternate astronaut missions to the orbiting facility to keep it fully staffed, alongside Soyuz, which delivers Russian cosmonaut-led crews. Russia has committed to ISS flights until at least 2028.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-1-week-before-launch-dress-rehearsal-astronauts 37TZLNGomyXm7g9Texk5HH Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:59:42 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say ]]> Boeing says it may sign up private astronauts for future Starliner missions, but the focus is on NASA for now.

The spacecraft's program manager, Mark Nappi, told reporters Thursday (April 25) the company is very focused on flying the first Starliner mission for NASA with astronauts on board. That mission, Crew Flight Test (CFT), will see NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams rocket to space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket no earlier than May 6.

"It [CFT] really is all of our attention at this point," Nappi said during a telephone press conference from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, near the launch site. After that, Boeing will make sure it has enough spacecraft manufactured for future NASA astronaut flights, which are expected to run to six or seven.

Private flights are a possibility, but not the concern for now given they are building out NASA flights through the International Space Station's possible retirement in 2030, he added. "We've got plenty of time to think about what's after that," Nappi added.

Boeing's decision stands in contrast to the other private company that sends astronauts up to the ISS: SpaceX.

Three years after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011, both SpaceX and Boeing received contracts from NASA to send commercial crew missions to the ISS. As of 2014, when the contracts were announced, Boeing's commercial crew contract for Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

SpaceX sent its first test mission to the ISS in 2020 and has provided 11 more astronaut flights to the complex since: Eight half-year missions for NASA, and three approximately two-week missions for private astronaut company Axiom Space.

Axiom is in fact just one private entity that uses SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. In 2021, for example, Shift4 billionaire and private pilot Jared Isaacman flew to Earth orbit with three civilians on a mission known as Inspiration4. Isaacman next bought three more Crew Dragon missions for a three-mission private series known as the Polaris Program. The first of the trio, Polaris Dawn, may fly with Isaacman and three other people as soon as this year and feature the first commercial spacecraft.

four people smiling in front of a window with earth in the background — The Inspiration4 crew posing inside the Dragon Crew cupola against the backdrop of Earth. From left: billionaire Jared Isaacman, Christopher Sembroski, Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux. (Image credit: Inspiration4)

Despite all of these private missions flown with SpaceX, Boeing officials have said they are struggling to find a business case for private astronaut missions as the market is so young and uncertain. Private astronaut missions are "just not at a level of maturity where I can write them into any kind of a business case and say that yeah, this is something that's going to kind of get us over the hump," John Shannon, vice president of Boeing Exploration Systems, told the Washington Post in October.

Aside from that, numerous technical problems with Starliner since 2019 forced Boeing to absorb $1.4 billion in unanticipated costs.

Starliner's issues delayed CFT by four years. The spacecraft's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 failed to reach its destination. Dozens of fixes later, a second test flight without astronauts safely docked with the ISS in 2022. CFT was delayed further in 2023 after critical issues with the parachutes, along with flammable P213 tape in the spacecraft, was discovered.

Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters during the same Thursday teleconference that he was impressed at Boeing's methodical fixes to the issues.

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

"The entire NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance team and all the contractors have done a tremendous job working through a myriad of problems getting the certification done, and getting us to this point today," Stich said.

Wilmore and Williams, both former U.S. Navy test pilots, arrived yesterday at KSC to continue their quarantine and preparation for CFT's launch. They aim to do a thorough shakedown of the spacecraft and all systems, including considerable manual flying and testing emergency procedures such as powering up the solar panels, to help certify Starliner for six-month missions.

If CFT's flight goes to plan, the first operational mission (Starliner-1) will fly in early 2025 at the earliest, for a six-month tenure. That crew includes NASA's Mike Fincke, NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-spacecraft-private-astronaut-nasa-focus 3Dp3vVMG3aqrWPppaaCMXc Sat, 27 Apr 2024 12:00:04 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'Rocket cam' takes you aboard final launch of ULA's Delta IV Heavy (video) ]]>

Stunning rocket cam footage captures the final Delta IV Heavy launch, closing out the program after 64 years of delivering large payloads into space.

The United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT) on April 9. The mission, known as NROL-70, carried a classified spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The launch was the 16th and final flight for the Delta IV Heavy rocket, and the 45th and last flight of a Delta IV launcher. It was also the final Delta launch of any kind, ending a string of 389 missions dating back to 1960.

a top-down view of a launch pad engulfed in flame as seen from a camera aboard a rocket during lift off — Screenshot of a United Launch Alliance video showing the final launch of the company's Delta IV Heavy rocket on April 9, 2024. (Image credit: ULA via YouTube)

"We have ignition!" officials said in the video, as they counted down to launch. "And, liftoff of the final United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket carrying NROL-70 for the National Reconnaissance Office and closing Delta's six-decade legacy of excellence in space."

The video includes views from both ground-based and onboard video cameras, documenting the rocket's successful final launch. From both angles, cameras watched the ignition sequence, with flames and plumes of smoke billowing up and around the rocket as it lifted off from the ground.

The onboard cameras capture Earth slipping into the distance as the rocket travels into space. Its side boosters separated around four minutes into the flight, followed by the second stage separation about two minutes later, leaving the Delta IV upper stage to complete a series of burns to deliver the classified NRO satellite to its orbital position, which is generally performed in secret and therefore not seen on the video footage.

The final Delta IV launch — which was originally scheduled for March 28 but aborted minutes before liftoff due to trouble with the rocket's nitrogen distribution system — marks the transition to ULA's next generation rocket, Vulcan Centaur.

— Facts about United Launch Alliance

— Delta IV Heavy rocket launches US spy satellite to orbit

"The Delta rocket played a pivotal role in the evolution of space flight since the 1960s," Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO, said in a statement following the April 9 launch. "This final Delta mission signals ULA's evolution to the new Vulcan rocket, providing even higher performance than our three-core Delta IV Heavy rocket in a single-core rocket to launch heavy-class missions for the nation. We will continue to deliver our superior reliability and unprecedented orbital precision for all our customers across the national security, civil and commercial markets."

Vulcan Centaur launched on its first mission, called Cert-1, on Jan. 8, 2024, carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander. While the launch went smoothly, Peregrine suffered a propulsion anomaly that created a significant propellant leak and ultimately led to the spacecraft burning up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-delta-iv-heavy-final-launch-video eDKP6SrwG7qRsR3juwWUpc Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:00:26 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos) ]]> The first Starliner crew is ready to fly on May 6, the team told reporters upon arriving at the launch site. This will mark the spacecraft's debut mission with humans on board.

The two NASA astronauts to fly aboard Boeing Starliner, commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida today (April 25) for their historic launch. Aside from being the first humans to fly on Starliner, the astronauts (both former U.S. Navy test pilots) will also be the first people to ride on board the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

This International Space Station (ISS) mission, known as Crew Flight Test, has been delayed about four years due to various issues with Starliner, which Wilmore and Williams have continually stressed are long resolved. But new things to tackle will surely come up during their approximately one-week test mission, Wilmore told reporters.

"Do we expect it to go perfectly? This is the first human flight [with] the spacecraft. I'm sure we'll find things out," Wilmore said in remarks livestreamed on NASA TV, minutes after he and Williams arrived on the tarmac in a two-seat T-38 jet used for training. "That's why we do this. This is a test flight. So when you do test, you expect to find things. We expect to find things."

Williams praised the trainers with Boeing and NASA for integrating "lessons learned" from two previous uncrewed flight tests with Starliner while getting procedures ready for the first astronaut flight, and testing those procedures in simulators.

two astronauts inside a jet with cockpit windows open — Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams, both of NASA, arrive at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida April 25 in a T-38 jet ahead of their launch. (Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

"We had the kitchen sink essentially thrown at us the other day, on a sim — and we came out fine," Williams said. "So I have all the confidence in not only our capabilities, the spacecraft capabilities, but also our mission control team who's ready for the challenge. They're up for it."

Boeing, alongside SpaceX, was tasked by NASA in 2014 to send commercial crew missions to the ISS. (NASA used to ferry most of its astronauts there using the space shuttle, and temporarily pivoted fully to using Russia's Soyuz spacecraft between the shuttle's retirement in 2011 and SpaceX's first crewed mission in 2020.)

two astronauts in helmets inside a jet with cockpit windows open — Crew Flight Test astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore, both of NASA, arrive at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida April 25 in a T-38 jet ahead of their launch. (Image credit: Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images)

Boeing's commercial crew contract for Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. But while SpaceX has sent 11 crews to the ISS aboard Crew Dragon, Starliner was delayed by four years amid numerous technical problems.

Starliner's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 failed to reach its destination. After implementing dozens of fixes, Starliner's second ISS flight (also without astronauts) made it there and back in 2022. The first crewed spaceflight for Starliner got delayed in 2023, however, after more issues were found with the spacecraft, with its main parachutes (the suspension lines carried less load than engineers thought) and wiring (largely covered with flammable P213 tape).

two astronauts in spacesuits smiling and standing in front of a wall. the wall has a nasa logo on it surrounded by mission patches

From left, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore, Boeing Crew Flight Test pilot and commander, respectively, during a crew validation test at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 18, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

The crew entered quarantine on Tuesday (April 23) at NASA's Johnson Space Center, roughly a week after their last visit to KSC on April 16 to see Starliner make a six-mile (10-kilometer) journey between buildings to be integrated with the Atlas V. Engineers are testing communications between the rocket and spacecraft before the stacked rocket rolls out to Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41.

A flight readiness review is ongoing this week by NASA and Boeing officials, and a press conference is expected later today around 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) that will run live here on Space.com. NASA's commercial crew program gave CFT its "go for launch" on April 18, following a flight test readiness review, officials previously wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

If CFT's flight goes to plan, the first operational mission (Starliner-1) is set to fly in early 2025 at the earliest, for a six-month tenure. On board Starliner-1 will be NASA's Scott Tingle, NASA's Mike Fincke and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk. If successful, Boeing will then join SpaceX and Russia, which flies some NASA astronauts to the ISS for technical and policy reasons, in delivering regular space station crews for normal half-year rotations.

This story was updated at 4 p.m. EDT with new timing for the flight readiness review conference.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronaut-arrival-launch-site-webcast vBaVAo3WdgQi5MG6rDxEy5 Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:20:16 +0000 <![CDATA[ NASA astronauts enter quarantine for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner launch on May 6 ]]> The first Starliner crew is in quarantine ahead of their scheduled May 6 launch.

The two NASA astronauts to fly aboard Boeing Starliner, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, entered standard pre-flight quarantine on Tuesday (April 22) at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, agency officials stated in a press release.

Quarantine will "ensure the health and safety of the crew prior to liftoff, as well as prevent sickness of the astronauts at the International Space Station," NASA officials stated. "During quarantine, astronaut contact is limited, and most interactions are remote — although family and some launch team members also may be in quarantine or cleared before interacting with the crew."

The astronauts' mission, Crew Flight Test or CFT, will launch to space near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida. The duo will also be the first humans to fly on board the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

Boeing and SpaceX received contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions to the ISS. Previous to commercial crew, NASA's space shuttle regularly exchanged ISS crews until the program's retirement in 2011 after 30 years of missions.

Boeing's commercial crew contract for the Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. SpaceX has been running operational ISS missions with Crew Dragon since 2020, while Starliner was delayed four years.

Engineers uncovered and addressed numerous technical problems with Starliner, particularly after the first uncrewed test flight in 2019 that failed to reach the ISS as planned. (A second flight got there safely in 2022.)

More issues were found in 2023, further pushing back human spaceflight: The suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes could handle less load than engineers thought, for example, and the capsule's wiring was largely covered in flammable P213 tape.

During a two-day media tour at JSC in March that Space.com attended, the crew, NASA and Boeing officials emphasized that the delays were necessary for safety. Moreover, the team has confidence that everything is ready for astronauts. Should issues come up in flight, which is common on new spacecraft, Starliner will be in good hands: Williams and Wilmore are former U.S. Navy test pilots well-versed in working out the kinks.

NASA's commercial crew program gave CFT its "go for launch" on April 18, following a flight test readiness review, officials wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Another review is scheduled on April 25, which is also the day that the astronauts are scheduled to fly to KSC for launch preparation.

Meanwhile, Starliner made a six-mile (10-kilometer) journey between buildings on April 16 to reach ULA's vertical integration facility, where it was integrated onto its Atlas V rocket. Engineers are testing the communications between the rocket and spacecraft before the stacked rocket rolls out to its launch pad.

a cone-shaped spacecraft on a long trailer. in back is a large building with an american flag and nasa logo on the side

Boeing Starliner for Crew Flight Test rolls past the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 16, 2024. (Image credit: Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images)

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

SpaceX and Boeing aren't the only entities sending astronauts to the ISS, as Russia's Soyuz spacecraft has been doing that since the complex began construction in 1998. Some NASA astronauts fly on Soyuz for technical and policy reasons, too.

NASA has several quarantine facilities available for astronauts and their support teams. JSC's NASA Astronaut Quarantine Facility is a 12,000-square-foot complex with 12 private sleeping quarters, alongside restrooms, a fitness room and a full kitchen, according to general contractor Harvey Cleary.

KSC's Astronaut Crew Quarters is roughly 26,000 square feet in size and is on the third floor of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, where spacecraft are tested and assembled. Among other features are 23 bedrooms and bathrooms, a suit room to get spacesuits on before launch, a kitchen, dining room, gym, conference rooms, laundry rooms, medical exam rooms and a flight surgeon's office, NASA officials stated.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-1st-astronauts-enter-quarantine-nasa-iss-mission-launch Bv4moe4sWMydG5ZmXP2kq7 Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:59:26 +0000 <![CDATA[ Boeing Starliner spacecraft rolls out to Atlas V rocket ahead of 1st astronaut launch (photos, video) ]]>

Boeing's first Starliner spacecraft for astronauts made a short road trip today (April 16) ahead of its expected launch in early May.

Starliner rolled out on a trailer towards its United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket around 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) in preparation for its International Space Station (ISS) mission no earlier than May 6. Onboard the mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be two veteran NASA astronauts and former Navy test pilots: commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.

Early this morning, Boeing rolled out of the commercial crew and cargo processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida to begin a 6-mile (10-kilometer) journey towards its Atlas V rocket in a separate building. Several astronauts were on hand to witness the historic journey.

a cone-shaped spacecraft on a truck going by a large building with a nasa building on the side. the scene is at night — Boeing Starliner for Crew Flight Test rolls past the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 16, 2024. (Image credit: Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images)

Starliner's destination was ULA's vertical integration facility, also at KSC, where the Atlas V rocket is accomplocated. Boeing Space announced on X, formerly Twitter, that rocket and spacecraft were successfully integrated in a post at 11:46 a.m. EDT (1546 GMT).

"Functionally, this rollout was similar in nature to previous rollouts," Amanda Ireland, Boeing's spacecraft liaison, said in a company statement, including "treating the spacecraft with the greatest care and detail."

Once stacking is complete and communications verified between rocket and spacecraft, the vehicles will be rolled out together to the launch pad at KSC.

a cone-shaped spacecraft in the dark in front of a building. the spacecraft is on a trailer with lights shining in the dark. in the background, in shadow, is a building with an illustration of starliner on the side — Boeing's Starliner spacecraft rolls out of the commercial crew and cargo processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, Florida on April 16, 2024. (Image credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

The upcoming roughly week-long CFT mission Starliner will run to the ISS aims to test out all major systems with astronauts on board. CFT follows two uncrewed flights by Starliner: A 2019 flight that did not reach the ISS as planned, and a 2022 attempt (following numerous changes to Starliner) that reached the ISS and met all other major flight objectives.

Crews for both CFT and the first operational six-month ISS mission in 2025 were on hand to watch the Starliner rollout.

Astronauts for that first operational mission, known as Starliner-1, include NASA's Scott Tingle, NASA's Mike Fincke and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk. Also present at the rollout was Kimiya Yui, an astronaut from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA, who is unassigned for a spaceflight so far.

two astronauts in flight suits in the dark. the one on the right flashes a thumbs-up. far in the background is a cone-shaped spacecraft on a trailer, in front of buildings — Crew Flight Test NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore in front of their Boeing Starliner spacecraft. Starliner was rolling between buildings at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 16, 2024 to prepare for launch. (Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Image)

Astronauts Butch Wilmore, @Astro_Suni, @AstroIronMike, @Astro_Kutryk, @Astro_Maker1 and @Astro_Kimiya are here to see the #Starliner spacecraft off. pic.twitter.com/PHaZsLoIb7April 16, 2024

CFT has been delayed by several years in sending crews to the ISS due to numerous technical problems, including more uncovered in 2023. The suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes could handle less load than engineers thought, and the capsule's wiring was largely made up of flammable P213 tape.

a lit-up rocket inside a tall building. a cone-shaped spacecraft sits on a trailer in front. surrounding the area is darkness — The Atlas V for Boeing Starliner awaiting the spacecraft, as it is shipped there on April 16, inside United Launch Alliance's vertical integration facility. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

— Boeing's Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

— NASA, Boeing delay Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut launch to early May

Boeing and NASA, alongside Starliner astronauts, emphasize that past issues are behind them and that Starliner is ready to bear crews. CFT will be a major checkout of all systems to certify Starliner for longer missions, six months or more, for standard ISS crew changeouts.

Boeing and SpaceX received contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions to the ISS. Boeing's contract for the Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

SpaceX began operational astronaut missions with Crew Dragon in 2020 and has so far brought 11 crews to ISS: Eight led by NASA and three on behalf of Axiom Space, a Houston company that runs approximately two-week ISS science excursions with a retired NASA astronaut at the helm.

Between the space shuttle's retirement in 2011 and the first operational commercial crew flights of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, NASA flew all astronauts to the ISS aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. The agency continues to send some astronauts on Soyuz for technical and policy reasons.

]]> https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-spacecraft-rollout-integration-rocket-astronaut-spaceflight Er3oURsMksJsqhtTuc22B5 Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:59:00 +0000 <![CDATA[ ULA chronicles the rise of Vulcan rocket in new employee-drawn comic book ]]> Vulcan, United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new heavy-lift rocket, was not the result of having to flee an exploding planet, being exposed to gamma rays or even surviving the bite of a radioactive spider, but it does have an origin story compelling enough to warrant it having its own comic book.

Or so struck Cory Wood, ULA's senior graphic designer, who led the creation of "Ignition! The Origin Story of the Vulcan Centaur Rocket," the first (and perhaps only) issue of the aerospace company's new celebratory graphic novel.

"I'm sort of a big nerd. And so in thinking about it, how do you tell the story of something that has taken this much time, this much effort and all of these people's intelligence and background to make it successful?" said Wood in an interview with collectSPACE. "It just felt like that superhero moment that needed its origin story told. And a comic book, that's how you tell a superhero's origin story, right?"

ULA's CEO Tory Bruno, who is depicted in "Ignition!", revealed the comic book's existence on social media on Friday (April 5), three days before its physical debut at Space Foundation's Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Attendees were able to pick up a copy while ULA finalizes its plans for making the Vulcan Centaur comic book available to the general public. (A digital version can be found on ULA's website.)

United Launch Alliance senior graphic designer Cory Wood poses with the company's first Vulcan rocket, the focus of the comic book she illustrated, "Ignition!" (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

Readers who are unfamiliar with the rocket's history will discover that the Vulcan got its start in 2014, soon after Bruno "with his trusty steed Indigo" was brought in to lead ULA.

"Indigo, we need to get home to meet with the engineers. Our country needs us," declares Bruno in one of the opening panels of the comic book.

Indigo features throughout "Ignition" — as the "rocket horse" did in real life, appearing to his fans' delight on Bruno's social media feed. The comic book also serves as a fitting memorial. "We wish him well as he explores pastures and his engineering expertise on horsepower, from this world and the next. He is missed by us all," reads a tribute on the last page.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno and "his trusty steed Indigo" feature in the company's new comic book, "Ignition! The Origin Story of the Vulcan Centaur Rocket" as illustrated by ULA's senior graphic designer Cory Wood. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance / collectSPACE.com)

"We wanted everybody to have a moment in this book where reading it you realize, 'Ah, I remember this,' or 'Ah, I'm a part of this,'" said Wood. "So whether you are an employee and you got a big chuckle out of Tory with the t-shirt cannon or you follow us on social media and you remember Indigo as a part of the story, we wanted to have these little tidbits that different people would identify with."

"So it was easy to take all of Tory's huge, grandiose, fabulous personality and use that social cowboy aspect so that our social followers would get a big kick out of it," said Wood. "It only seemed natural then for Indigo to become a character, too, as we began to step down that road."

Central to "Ignition" is the story of Vulcan, from how it was designed, named, built, assembled, tested and ultimately, launched. That tale includes the ULA rockets that preceded it — the Atlas and Delta — and why the capabilities built into the Vulcan's design are needed by the company's national security, government and commercial clients.

Cover art for the first edition of United Launch Alliance's new comic book, "Ignition! The Origin Story of the Vulcan Centaur Rocket." (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)

Along the way, the message becomes even clearer. This is Vulcan's origin story, but the rocket is not the only superhero.

"It is really about all of the engineers and all of the effort and time that all of these different heroes throughout our company have pulled together to create such a wonderful vehicle that's coming forth and maybe defining our future. So when we talk about the story or heroes in the story, it's Vulcan, but it's also all of the people standing behind Vulcan to help create her," Wood said.

"Ignition" is Wood's first comic book and she strove to make it a love letter to the art form. She began with pencil sketches, progressed to ink and paint drawings and then scanned those pages to finish the book on the computer. She was also sure to include details all comic book fans would appreciate, including a page of ads (here hawking different aspects of ULA's business rather than 3D glasses and cheap magic tricks) and an all-important detail on the cover.

Cory Wood's sketches and inked pages for ULA's new comic book, "Ignition! The Origin Story of the Vulcan-Centaur Rocket." (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

"We really don't want the comic book to be sold at stores but at the same time, as a kid picking up a comic, you look for the first print, first edition," said Wood. "So the barcode '00111' is the comic you want out of a series. The '001' is a reference that this is the first print of the series. Then the next '1' means it is the first cover art and the last '1' is the first printing of that exact comic."

Which begs the question: will there be an issue '00211'?

"I don't know," said Wood. "Volume One entails our history as a company and as a team, so I think Volume Two has yet to be written. It is still in front of us. But I'm excited to find out and walk with the rest of this team as we figure out where this goes. And maybe, someday, we'll get to tell that story, too."

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-rocket-ignition-comic-book FpTNF2MtDiswHCidbm3ai8 Fri, 12 Apr 2024 20:00:09 +0000 <![CDATA[ 'Heavy' history: ULA launches final Delta rocket after 64 years (video, photos) ]]>

After six decades of launches, the liftoff of the last-ever Delta rocket on Tuesday (April 9) brought with it a change in the way the U.S. sends satellites, interplanetary probes and spacecraft into Earth orbit.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) ignited its last Delta IV Heavy rocket to launch NROL-70, a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The powerful booster departed Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT), literally setting itself on fire for the 16th and final time.

"It is a bittersweet moment for us," said Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance, in a call with reporters on March 26. "It is such an amazing piece of technology — 23 stories tall, hall a million gallons of propellant, two and a quarter million pounds of thrust and the most metal of all rockets, setting itself on fire before it goes to space."

That spectacle, which was unique to the Delta IV in its heaviest configuration, was the result of hydrogen building up in the flame trench and then rising up alongside the rocket after it was used to cool down the three RS-68A engines to cryogenic temperatures. When the engines fired, the hydrogen ignited and flames lapped at the orange insulation covering the core stage and its two side-mounted boosters.

"It's why we had nicely toasted marshmallow boosters and the very dramatic effect of a self-immolating rocket before up she goes," said Bruno.

The two boosters were jettisoned about four minutes into the flight, followed by the core, or first stage, separating one minute and 45 seconds later. A single RL10C-2-1 engine on the Delta cryogenic second stage then took over, propelling the NROL-70 payload into space. Due to national security concerns, coverage of the launch ceased following fairing jettison at about 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the flight.

closeup of a white rocket with — The Delta program logo on the side of the last Delta IV Heavy and Delta rocket to fly after 64 years of service. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

ULA is retiring the Delta IV, and eventually its other legacy rocket, the Atlas V, in favor of its newly introduced Vulcan, which flew a near-perfect first mission in January. The Vulcan was developed to replace both long-flying rockets in all of their configurations.

"This is a great mission to think about that transition, because national security space missions is our core and the unique set of missions there require a high-energy launch vehicle. We designed Vulcan specifically for that," said Bruno.

Go Delta

In addition to being the 16th Delta IV Heavy, Tuesday's launch was also the 45th liftoff of a Delta IV, the 35th Delta IV to fly from Florida and the 389th Delta launch of any kind since 1960 (of which 294 were sent skyward from Cape Canaveral).

Half of the Delta IV Heavy launches were devoted to sending NRO payloads into orbit. The rocket and its less powerful configurations were also used in support of NASA, NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), U.S. Air Force and commercial payloads.

The first Delta launch on May 13, 1960, attempted to put the world's first passive communications satellite experiment into space, but was unsuccessful due to the Delta's attitude control thrusters failing to fire. (The Delta initially flew as the second stage atop a Thor ballistic missile, hence the vehicle was called the Thor-Delta.)

a white rocket launches into a black night sky — The first Thor-Delta rocket lifts off with the Echo 1 satellite on an ill-fated launch from Cape Canaveral on May 13, 1960. (Image credit: NASA)

Three months later, the Thor-Delta deployed Echo IA into orbit, leading to the first successful satellite transmission and first two-way communications between two points on Earth by way of space. That success was then followed by the launch of the second weather satellite and Telstar-1, the latter making possible the first live transatlantic television feed.

Next came Delta B, a derivative of the Thor-Delta, whose flights included the July 1963 launch of Syncom-2, the first satellite in a geosynchronous orbit.

Delta C, which was introduced four months after the Syncom-2 launch, primarily carried NASA research satellites into orbit. The Delta D, which added three solid rocket motors to the Delta C configuration, deployed the the first geostationary communications satellite in 1964 and the first commercial communication satellite, Intelsat I, a year later.

Related: A history of rockets

Delta E launched a series of NASA Pioneer probes that measured interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. Delta G (F was not built), which was a Delta E without its third stage, began the launch of a series of NASA satellites that carried biological specimens for study. Delta J launched only once, K was not built and L introduced an elongated version of the Thor first stage.

Delta M and Delta N closed out the alphabetical designations while being used to send more communications satellites to Earth orbit.

The numerical series that followed included the Delta 900, which sent NASA's first LandSat meteorological satellite into space in 1972; Delta 2310, which put Spain's first satellite into orbit to study the ionosphere; and Delta 2914, which launched the first NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES).

Delta 3000 introduced the payload assist module (PAM) to reach higher orbits. A 3000-series rocket was NASA's first launch after the space shuttle Challenger tragedy in 1986, but it too was ill-fated, and was destroyed before it could deploy the GOES satellite it was carrying.

Only three 4000- and one 5000-series rockets launched, but they led the way to the Delta II, which flew in Lite and Heavy configurations.

photo collage of five rockets on the pad, three of which are launching. — Evolution of the Delta family of rockets. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

The Delta II entered service in 1989 with the launch of the first operational Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite. In total, the Delta II lifted off 155 times over the course of nearly 30 years, of which all but two flights were successful. One-third of the launches were dedicated to NASA payloads, including sending eight robotic landers and rovers to Mars; a pair of twin probes to the moon; the first mission to orbit the planet Mercury; the first mission to orbit and land on an asteroid; and the first spacecraft to return a sample from a comet.

The Delta II also deployed the Spitzer Space Telescope and Kepler planet-hunting observatory before launching for the last time in 2018 with NASA's ICESat-2 Earth observation satellite.

Delta III flew only three times. Two launches failed and the last carried a dummy payload.

The Delta IV was developed for the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. Originally flown by Boeing before the aerospace company partnered with Lockheed Martin to establish ULA, the Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy became the primary rocket supporting U.S. military payloads.

The Delta IV Heavy was also used to launch NASA's Orion spacecraft on its first uncrewed Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) in 2014 and sent the Parker Solar Probe on its way to "touch" the sun in 2018.

Delta on display

Through each of its versions and configurations, the Delta family of rockets advanced and grew more capable. To lift heavier payloads and send them farther into space, the venerable launch vehicle gained larger tanks, added strap-on solid rocket boosters, adopted improved engines and employed more powerful upper stages.

The Delta IV Heavy that launched to close out the program on Tuesday stood 235 feet (72 meters) tall, more than 2.5 times the height of the original Thor-Delta. At liftoff, the Delta IV Heavy generated 2.1 million pounds (9,341 kiloNewtons) of thrust, a significant increase over the 150,000 pounds (667 kiloNewtons) in 1960.

"It just has a storied legacy, and it has done great things for our nation. We are very proud to have been a part of that," said Bruno. "And even though Vulcan is the future, personally I am sad to see it go."

mission patch for nrol-70, the final launch of the delta iv heavy rocket. it shows a rocket launching high above earth — Poster for the NROL-70 launch on United Launch Alliance's final Delta IV Heavy and overall 389th and last Delta rocket. (Image credit: National Reconnaissance Office)

— Facts about United Launch Alliance

— Delta IV Heavy rocket launches US spy satellite to orbit

Despite its long history, only a few Delta rockets are preserved by museums and rocket parks today.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida displays a Thor-Delta and Delta II in its Rocket Garden. Another Thor-Delta can be seen at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The static fire unit for what became the Delta IV common booster core was delivered to the Air Force Space and Missile Museum (today, the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum) in 2007 and was placed on outdoor display.

"We don't have an extra Delta IV Heavy to put in a museum," said Bruno. "So [this last rocket] absolutely had a special feel to it."

]]> https://www.space.com/final-delta-4-heavy-rocket-launch-nrol-70 aBHuvE6s2ArnqYjiptJc4M Tue, 09 Apr 2024 17:33:18 +0000 <![CDATA[ Final launch of Delta IV Heavy rocket scrubbed late in countdown ]]> We'll have to wait a few more days to see the swan song of United Launch Alliance's (ULA) powerful Delta IV Heavy rocket.

The Delta IV Heavy was supposed to launch for the final time on March 28, sending a U.S. spy satellite skyward from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. But the attempt was scrubbed with just under four minutes left in the countdown "due to an issue with the gaseous nitrogen pipeline which provides pneumatic pressure to the launch vehicle systems," ULA wrote in an update on March 28.

ULA is now targeting April 9 at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT) for the liftoff. You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA.

The coming launch will be the 16th and final Delta IV Heavy mission, as well as the last for the Delta rocket family, which has been flying for more than six decades.

The Delta IV Heavy's successor, ULA's Vulcan Centaur, is already up and running. The new rocket aced its first mission this past January, successfully lofting the private Peregrine moon lander (although Peregrine suffered problems after deploying into space and failed to reach the moon as planned).

A three-booster orange and white Delta IV Heavy rocket stands on the launch pad for its final flight at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. — A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket is raised vertically at the Space Launch Complex-37 pad in preparation to launch the NROL-70 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

— Huge Delta IV Heavy rocket launches US spy satellite to orbit

— The history of rockets

The final Delta IV Heavy mission, called NROL-70, will launch a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO builds and operates the nation's fleet of spy satellites and rarely divulges many details about their capabilities and activities.

Thus, unsurprisingly, ULA's NROL-70 mission description is vague, as the team only stated that the launch will "strengthen the NRO's ability to provide a wide range of timely intelligence information to national decision makers, warfighters and intelligence analysts to protect the nation’s vital interests and support humanitarian efforts worldwide."

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:30 p.m. ET on April 3 with the new target launch date of April 9.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-delta-iv-heavy-final-launch-scrub v43YzEdoaSZepD6Bja4bGX Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:44:09 +0000 <![CDATA[ Watch United Launch Alliance launch its final Delta Heavy IV rocket today in this free livestream ]]>

The era of Delta Heavy IV is coming to an end.

For the last 64 years, United Launch Alliance's (ULA's) heavy-lift rocket has led an impressive career lofting large payloads into space. However, the rocket is scheduled to lift off one last time when it launches from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch was originally planned for Thursday afternoon (March 28), but ULA called that try off due to a technical issue a few minutes before liftoff. The company is now targeting today (April 9) at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT) for the landmark launch.

Aboard the Delta Heavy IV rocket for the mission, known as NROL-70, will be a classified payload being launched on behalf of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO rarely discloses the nature or capabilities of its spy satellites, and this particular mission offers no exception. Yet, while the payload is a secret, the launch is not. You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA.

The specific nature of the spacecraft launching atop ULA's Delta Heavy IV rocket on NROL-70 of course remains a mystery, but we can assume it's a sophisticated spy satellite given the customer. The NRO is an agency within the Department of Defense tasked with developing, building and operating the United States' surveillance satellites.

A mission description published by ULA states the payload aboard the launch will "strengthen the NRO's ability to provide a wide-range of timely intelligence information to national decision makers, warfighters, and intelligence analysts to protect the nation’s vital interests and support humanitarian efforts worldwide."

— Huge Delta IV Heavy rocket launches US spy satellite to orbit

— The history of rockets

In addition to the Delta IV Heavy, ULA plans on retiring another one of its rockets: The workhorse Atlas V. The idea is to make way for the company's new Vulcan Centaur, which launched on its first mission on Jan. 8, 2024 when it sent Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander moonward.

The Atlas V will keep flying through 2029, however, as it is already booked for missions to help develop Amazon's Project Kuiper internet constellation and send Boeing's Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station on its first launch, slated for no earlier than May 6.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 2:53 p.m. ET on March 28 with the new planned launch date of March 29, then again at 3:30 p.m. ET on April 3 with the new target date of April 9.

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-delta-iv-heavy-nrol-70-livestream vmzRjPbZA3kJkquDM6E3VE Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:00:01 +0000 <![CDATA[ Kerbal Space Program game director and ULA CEO talk STEM collaboration and companies' futures (exclusive) ]]> The makers of the popular spaceflight simulation video game Kerbal Space Program (KSP) paired up with real-life rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA) and their CEO Tory Bruno to challenge the internet to recreate ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket in the Kerbal universe.

Both companies recently completed their own significant launches. An early-access version of Kerbal Space Program 2 was released in 2023, and in December, the company sent out a major update called "For Science," which honed-in the game's physics and added the goals-oriented ability to collect different types of science throughout the countless environments that exist in the Kerbal solar system.

Meanwhile, ULA's own recent launch took place just after the new year, when the company’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket lifted off for the first time on Jan. 8, 2024. In anticipation of the milestone event, KSP game director Nate Simpson visited ULA headquarters in Colorado to build the Vulcan rocket inside KSP with the help of some of ULA's actual rocket scientists. Following his visit, a KSP social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter, invited users to submit versions of their own Vulcan KSP recreations, enticing the possibility to "win some goodies." In a follow-up post, KSP wrote, "recreate the #VulcanRocket in KSP 2 and see what kinds of missions you can accomplish. The more ambitious the better," adding at the end of the post that Tory Bruno would announce his favorite at the end of the contest. Now, the results are in!

Recreate the #VulcanRocket in KSP 2 and see what kinds of missions you can accomplish. The more ambitious the better. Post your videos/images, tag @ulalaunch and @KerbalSpaceP along with #KSPVulcanRocket, and @torybruno will pick his favorite. You have until Jan 5!December 20, 2023

The winner of the KSP/ULA Vulcan rocket recreation challenge goes to X user The Space Peacock, (@Space_Peacock) with a near-perfect recreation of Vulcan, seen inside the KSP vehicle assembly building (VAB) in their first of a thread of posts. The Space Peacock recreated Vulcan's Cert-1 mission from January, then went on to simulate a flight of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane, and even included a version of Vulcan's future SMART engine reuse capability, returning the first-stage booster's engine's back for an ocean splashdown and recovery.

@KerbalSpaceP @ulalaunch @torybruno #KSPVulcanRocket i'm a bit on the late side, but here is my recreation of the Vulcan Centaur in KSP2! A thread; pic.twitter.com/9BCx7064QzJanuary 6, 2024

Two runners-up were also chosen, which included X user Albert Hajek (@albert_hajek) and YouTube channel PicoSpace Industries (@picospace). Hajek also posted at thread outlining the launch and staging of their own version of Vulcan, which sent a lander to the "Mun," KSP’s version of the moon. PicoSpace posted a Vulcan rescue mission video to YouTube, launching the rocket with a crew capsule into Kerbin orbit to save a stranded Kerbal astronaut.

Hey @ulalaunch & @KerbalSpaceP I tried the #KSPVulcanRocket challenge. I took a shot at recreating the Vulcan and took it for a spin with a lander and a rover over to Mun. Hope you like it @torybruno! Sneak peak on the images here and the full gallery/story below -> pic.twitter.com/iK8pffAoJsJanuary 4, 2024

"I thought all three of them were awesome," Tory Bruno said in an interview. The ULA CEO, along with KSP’s Nate Simpson sat down with Space.com to discuss the contest and the unique harmony Kerbal has created at the intersection of education and entertainment in STEM fields.

"I don't like to play favorites," Simpson said. "It's like you're asking me to choose among my children. We're always really impressed and we'd like to see a variety of solutions to the same problem."

KSP2 is the long-anticipated sequel to the popular KSP1, in which players are free to explore an entire solar system of planets and moons by designing, building and launching their own rockets and payloads. The game gives players the ability to construct everything from simple satellite communication relays to endlessly complex planetary exploration vehicles, but it comes with a bit of a learning curve.

Beginning players to KSP1, especially those without some familiarity in physics or orbital mechanics, often find it hard to literally get off the ground – let alone land a craft on the Mun. Simpson says they've tried to eliminate that roadblock, making KSP2 accessible and engaging for players at any skill level. Crashing your rocket or spacecraft over and over and over again is not uncommon, but it's also part of the point.

How do you find that balance?

Simpson: "We poured a lot of energy into re-tutorializing the game, making it funny, making it flavorful, giving people information in bite sized chunks so they could progress in a way that didn't feel like it's wasting their time. The most important thing was teaching a lesson that all rocket scientists already know, which is that the only way you learn is through failure.

Most video games penalize failure, and make the player feel bad. They make them feel like they've done a bad job when they fail. A big part of changing that for us is learning to celebrate failure; to have it be a funny thing, have it be a visually impressive and sonically impressive thing. I think that at this point now, people show off their failures more than their successes. It's the thing that they love to show one another online. So teaching that is really, really important. They need to understand that the experts – the people who do this for real, like Tory – it's not about being perfect on the first try. It's about learning as much as you can from what takes place."

a green humanoid stands in a sandy landscape wearing a spacesuit, a finger held to her chin, looking confused. Behind her, a jet airplane lays upside down. the sky is blue. — A kerbal astronaut stands confused, a jet cashed behind them in a desert landscape. (Image credit: Kerbal Space Program 2)

Bruno, who admits to being an avid Kerbal player himself, says there is a "purity" to playing the game, and "if it explodes – all the better."

One of the things that brought the team at KSP and ULA together is a shared passion for promoting STEM education and initiatives. Many throughout the aerospace industry came to playing KSP because of their existing interest in the field, but nearly as many found their interest in the field because of KSP.

"It's hard for me to find one of my engineers who doesn't play KSP. They just love it. It is really well done for a game. It's just really amazing," Bruno said. ULA employs approximately 2,700 people, according to their website. On the other side of the Kerbal inspiration Bruno said, "we have a pretty robust internship program where we bring college students in and new hires, and when I do a … meeting with a group like that, I often hear how excited they are, how much they love KSP and how surprised they are that we, we the professionals here [at ULA] already play it. A lot of them will say, 'you know, KSP really hooked me in, and I hadn't thought about space until then.'"

Simpson loves being a part of a team creating such an impactful game, but is weary of some of the assumptions newcomers may have when hearing about KSP’s tendency to be "educational."

"We sometimes get nervous when people call us educational software, because that makes it sound like eating vegetables," he said. "What we've learned is that if you simulate a universe at a high enough level of fidelity and then give people interesting goals to pursue within that universe ... that just in trying to win the game, trying to get to a new place – and you're contending with what are real physical forces, gravitation, aerodynamic drag, all that stuff – that you accidentally learn rocket science in a meaningful way."

Of ULA's and KSP's recent launches of the Vulcan rocket and For Science update, respectively, both Bruno and Simpson spoke with resounding positivity and flowering outlooks for the coming year.

With KSP 2 still in early-access, Simpson and his team are relying on players to help them iron out the game's sometimes glitchy rough edges. "This is definitely the biggest year for KSP 2, because we're sort of moving into future technology. That was a big part of the promise of the game. So it'll be fun to watch what people do with the nuclear pulse engine, inertial confinement fusion, and all the fancy toys that are to come," he said.

— The sounds of Kerbal Space Program 2: How an emotional real-life rocket launch transformed the game

— Kerbal Space Program 2 is here! Spark joy with exploding rockets today

"Our players right now are helping us kind of zero-in on areas of potential improvement. Going into this year, we've got the first exciting new features that were not seen in KSP1. First, we're going to do [settlements]. And [settlements] are going to enable on-orbit construction, and that's sort of a necessary precursor to us moving into the future of space technology, where we're going to start doing interstellar travel, and introducing a new star system," Simpson said.

blistering white flames burst from the two nozels piped on either side of the bottom of a rocket, fixed with two dark metalic engines shining through the smoke, shooting out a faint blue flame like two diamonds toward the ground. — United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur launches on its debut flight from Launch Complex-40 on Jan 8, 2024. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Diner)

On Vulcan, Bruno says the rocket's first flight went "perfectly."

"Usually your first new rocket launch does one of two things: Either you explode it, or you have some multiple major anomalies during flight – even if the flight completes – that were not as planned. Then you always have this year-long sort of design cycle where you go iron all that out. That's pretty typical. I've probably done three dozen first vehicle flights. So you know, I speak from experience. This one was different … We had just a perfect mission."

"I'm sitting there on console a few hours out from the launch, and at one point, I was just convinced that my headset was busted. Because there's always chatter, there's stuff going on, there's an ice fall on an umbilical, or there's a thermocouple that died and people are working through all that. And there's nothing. It's dead silent for like 25 minutes and I'm like, 'oh, hey, I think my headset is busted. I need some support in here,' and they're like, 'no, no, there's just literally nothing happening, Tory. It's fine.’ And so we roll down through the count and we literally went on the first second of the window, dead nominal throughout… I've never done one quite that clean before."
Tory Bruno

Rather than a year to parse through the data from Vulcan's January flight, Bruno says ULA teams will likely complete their evaluation within another week. On launch day, Bruno described things going so smoothly, he attributed silence on the mission control communications channel during pre-launch preparations to a systems glitch.

Vulcan is manifested for a total of six flights in 2024, which Bruno says ULA is on track to launch, but emphasized that the launch vehicle is only the last stop in the process of getting a spacecraft into orbit.

"The rocket is at the end of that long journey of designing, building and delivering the spacecraft and all you know, and all but one of [the spacecraft launching on that manifest] is still either being built or tested, so if they have a delay, then we wait for them, or we rearrange the manifest. But so far, so good. It's still early in the year," Bruno said.

The early access version of Kerbal Space Program 2 is available now on the company's website.

]]> https://www.space.com/kerbal-space-program-2-ula-vulcan-rocket-recreation-challenge 8fbu4BFNR7xLG7uAWmPzUT Fri, 23 Feb 2024 23:00:41 +0000 <![CDATA[ ULA's Vulcan rocket launches private US moon lander, 1st since Apollo, and human remains in debut flight ]]>

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A brand-new rocket just got its wings.

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur launched on its first-ever flight, called Cert-1, early this morning (Jan. 8), from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Vulcan lifted off at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 GMT), when the rocket's two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and two Blue Origin-built BE-4 first-stage engines blasted the vehicle skyward with nearly 2 million pounds of thrust. Atop the rocket was Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic's Peregrine moon lander, which is carrying 20 different customer payloads, including five NASA science instruments.

a white rocket launches into a dark night sky. — United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 GMT). (Image credit: CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

A pillar of exhaust trailed Vulcan as the 202-foot-tall (62 meters) rocket rose above its launch tower and disappeared into the dark Florida sky. About two minutes after liftoff, the SRBs successfully separated from Vulcan's first-stage booster, which continued to climb through Earth's atmosphere.

About five minutes after liftoff, Vulcan's first stage shut its engines down and separated from the Centaur upper stage, which began the first of three burns after a 15-second coast phase. Centaur's first burn lasted about 30 seconds, followed by a longer, four-minute translunar injection burn a half-hour later. About 50.5 minutes after launch, the rocket's primary payload, Peregrine, was released to journey onward toward the moon.

"Yeehaw! I am so thrilled, I can't tell you how much," ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno said just after Peregrine deployed successfully. "So far, this has been an absolutely beautiful mission back to the moon."

a space lander with protruding legs sits attached to its payload adapter in a white room. The Peregrine lunar lander, built by the Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, will launch toward the moon atop a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket on Jan. 8. — Astrobotic's Peregrine moon lander before payload fairing encapsulation. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)

If Peregrine lands successfully next month as planned, it will become the first American spacecraft to reach the moon's surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. Peregrine could also be the first private mission ever to touch down on the moon. Astrobotic is locked in a bit of a modern moon race. Another company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is also launching a mission to the moon. Intuitive Machines' lander, Nova-C, is launching in a few weeks, but may actually land a day earlier than Peregrine.

However that moon race plays out, Peregrine's mission is significant, especially for NASA, and carries with it a number of firsts. NASA's five scientific payloads aboard the lunar lander are contracted through the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, with Peregrine providing the program's first service fulfillment.

"It's an exciting time," Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, told Space.com in the days leading up to Vulcan's launch.

"It's a totally new way of doing business," Kearns said, "and [the Peregrine mission] is going to be our first data of how it's gonna go."

NASA's CLPS contracts have implications for the agency's Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon for the first ime in 2025 or 2026 and set up a base on the lunar surface not long afterward. That base will be located in the moon's southern polar region, where water ice appears to be plentiful.

"We have many, many scientific questions about the moon, about all different areas of the moon, but particularly the South Pole," Kearns said. "We'd like to get better prepared to better plan the astronaut visits that will go to the South Pole, and eventually the Artemis base camp will be put there. And we really want to try to generate a lunar ecosystem of companies that are very skilled and successful about turning a service to bring things to the moon."

"We went to each of these companies we've contracted with, and we said, 'We want you to bring our stuff to the moon, operate it and get us our data back.' And it's up to them to design a mission, design a lander, make a lander, buy a launch vehicle, buy all the communications, have a mission control," he added. "They are really a delivery service for us. And that's a really new way of doing things. And we really think there's a lot of benefits to the United States, a lot of advantages of going down that route."

Programs like CLPS are freeing NASA to focus on more cutting-edge research and development, according to Kearns. "We would really like to be in the position that, for things industry could do, we would like to just go to industry and buy that as a service," he said. "And that lets us focus on more state-of-the-art things which are not clear to industry how to do, so that NASA could go pioneer those."

The five NASA science payloads flying to the moon aboard Peregrine will characterize the lunar environment after the lander touches down. The Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) will use mirrors and lasers to measure very precise distances, and will function as Peregrine's permanent location marker on the lunar surface. The Lunar Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS) will measure radiation in the spacecraft's environment, both in lunar orbit and on the moon's surface.

A graphic showing a private moon lander's path to the moon — This Astrobotic graphic shows the path to the moon its Peregrine lunar lander will take. It should take 2.5 weeks to reach its first lunar orbit, then spend weeks awaiting a landing on Feb. 23, 2024. (Image credit: Astrobotic)

Three different spectrometers are also part of NASA's Peregrine payloads. They include the Near Infrared Volatile Spectrometers System (NIRVSS), for measuring hydrogen on the moon's surface and subsurface; the Peregrine Ion Trap Mass Spectrometers for Lunar Surface Volatiles (PITMS), which will study the moon's wispy atmosphere; and the Neutron Spectrometer System, which will look for shifts in hydrogen-bearing materials on the surface between the moon's day and night periods.

Astrobotic is carrying a number of non-NASA payloads as well. Indeed, the totality of Peregrine's 20 payloads will enable six nations to send material to the lunar surface for the first time — Mexico, Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, the Seychelles and Nepal.

During a press conference on Jan. 5, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton highlighted an especially symbolic payload included on the Peregrine lander. "There's a piece of Everest going back to the moon," he said. "There was actually an astronaut that brought a piece of the moon to the peak of Everest," he explained, referring to a 2010 expedition by NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski, who brought moon rocks collected by the Apollo 11 crew to the top of the world's highest peak. Everest now gets to return the favor, Thornton said.

Another payload aboard Peregrine comes from space memorial company Celestis, which sends customer DNA and cremated remains into space. The company offers a tiered mission structure, which ranges from suborbital flights to missions to Earth orbit, lunar orbit and the lunar surface to a permanent orbit around the sun. Celestis has sent payloads to the lunar surface once before and is doing so again on Peregrine, with a mission the company calls Luna Tranquility.

Tranquility includes the DNA of 66 mission "participants," whose remains will be permanently situated on the moon's surface following Peregrine's landing. Though the plans and payloads for Celestis' Tranquility flight were publicly announced years before the mission finally made it to the launch pad, objections about depositing human remains on the moon surfaced less than a month ago.

In a Dec. 21 letter to NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), President of the Navajo Nation Buu Nygren requested that the memorial launch be postponed, saying that "the act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space."

In prelaunch briefings and interviews leading up to the Cert-1 launch, NASA officials stressed the nature of commercial contracts, and the agency's inability to assert that type of authority over a private company's actions. "This isn't NASA's mission," Kearns told Space.com.

Kearns also pointed out that NASA makes the effort to consider a wide variety of implications when planning its missions, citing as an example a conference in the spring of 2023.

"In April this past year, we hosted at NASA Headquarters a workshop to get input from a variety of people on what we ended up calling, in shorthand, 'ethics of Artemis,'" he said. "And it was the idea to get non-traditional groups that probably don't deal with the scientific or engineering aspects of our future projected work on the moon and Mars to give us their inputs on things that they think that we or the U.S. government-wide should consider in the future."

Celestis CEO Charles Chafer said he wishes the concerns had been raised well before the rocket and payload had reached a logistical point of no return. "We also strongly disagree with the characterization of our reverent, carefully prepared by aerospace and funeral service professionals, flight capsules that are permanently encased in the lunar lander and not released onto the lunar surface as desecration," Chafer said in a statement. "Our clients consider our service an appropriate celebration — the polar opposite of desecration."

Tranquility isn't the only Celestis mission flying on the Cert-1 launch. The company also put a payload called Enterprise on the rocket's Centaur upper stage. That mission, aptly named, has been decades in the making. It includes DNA from "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, as well as the remains from several actors from the original TV series, including Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan and DeForest Kelley, who played Lieutenant Uhura, Chief Engineer "Scotty" and CMO Leonard "Bones" McCoy, respectively.

The DNA from some of these folks' living relatives is also flying on Celestis' Enterprise flight, including Rod Roddenberry, the son of Gene and Majel, and Wende Doohan, the widow of James.

"I feel like this is our last adventure together," Wende Doohan told Space.com during a Celestis event honoring the mission participants. James Doohan died in 2005, and Wende thinks he would love this tribute. "If he had had a chance to fly while he was still alive, he would have adored it. It was the best thing that he could think of to do," Doohan said. "Had he been alive when Bill went up into space, he would have fought him for the seat, I'll tell you."

"Bill" is William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk on "Star Trek." Shatner launched on a suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket in October 2021.

"I truthfully see all this as an incredibly beautiful, symbolic kind of thing," Rod Roddenberry told Space.com. This isn't the first Celestis flight to include the "Star Trek" creator's ashes, but it is the first with Gene and Majel together.

"My mother made [Charles Chafer] promise that when she passed away, that he would take her ashes and my father's ashes, and not just send them up into orbit, but launch them out into space," Rod said. "We are at the event that is celebrating not just my mother and father, but many other notables in 'Star Trek,' as well as many other people who have signed up for this and shared their families remains, as well as their DNA to be launched into space. Everyone is going where no one has gone before."

The "Star Trek" notables aren't the only ones aboard the Enterprise flight, which is headed to an orbit around the sun aboard Centaur. The mission includes material from 270 participants, including DNA from former U.S. presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

a man in a blue collared shirt stands in front of a black panel with various buttons. — Rod Roddenberry stands in front of a backdrop of the U.S.S. Enterprise bridge, from the original "Star Trek" series. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

As its mission name suggests, this is Vulcan's first certification flight. The rocket will need to launch a second time in order to obtain the clearances the rocket needs.

"We've been working with the U.S. Space Force for multiple years on the certification of Vulcan, and it goes really much further beyond just the two certification flights," Mark Peller, vice president of major development at ULA, said during a pre-launch press briefing. "Obviously, these are very significant, but the U.S. Space Force has partnered with us throughout development and has full insight into design and development."

The development of Vulcan was a lengthy process, lasting about a decade. Its debut was originally targeted for 2019, but issues with the launch vehicle and its BE-4 engines delayed the launch multiple times. Despite these problems, ULA representatives voiced confidence in the rocket in the days leading up to liftoff.

"We're building on more than 120 years of combined Atlas and Delta experience," Gary Wentz, ULA's vice president of government and commercial programs, said during the Jan. 5 teleconference, referring to the company's venerable Atlas V and Delta rockets.

"As we brought Vulcan onboard and designed the systems, we leveraged the existing systems as much as possible from Atlas and Delta," Wentz added. "When you look, the only hardware that hasn't flown prior to this flight is the BE-4 engines; all the others, or variants thereto, have flown on either Atlas or Delta flights on missions for other customers."

Astrobotic CEO Thornton said he trusted Peregrine to fly on a brand-new rocket. "The reason we went with United Launch Alliance — first, we have the same belief in them as a company and they have a story and track record like no other on Earth, with decades of success under their belt. Vulcan has a new name, but it really is an upgraded Atlas V, so that gives us great comfort in that as well," Thornton said on Jan. 5.

Now, Peregrine is on its own, headed toward the moon to attempt what few have accomplished — a fact not lost on Thornton. "Flying to the surface of the moon and operating lunar missions is a very, very challenging business to go about," he said. "If you look back in the course of history, only about half of those missions have been successful. And most of those have been funded by superpowers, with vastly larger budgets than this mission has been granted," Thornton said.

Indeed, landing on the moon is a feat accomplished so far by just four nations — the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India — and no private companies. Sharad Bhaskaran, Peregrine mission director at Astrobotic, explained to Space.com how the company tried to design its lunar lander to ensure success.

"The main thing we tried to do is simplify it," Bhaskaran said in a Jan. 5 interview. "We don't articulate our solar panel when we are in orbit. It's fixed on the top of the spacecraft, so we have a sun-pointing orientation to maintain power margins. The only thing that articulates is, after we land, we have a medium-gain antenna that deploys to give us a high-bandwidth transmission of science data. But we did that intentionally, because the more things you have deployed and articulate, the more potential risks there are, single-point failures on mission critical-features on the spacecraft."

After its separation from Centaur, Peregrine's first step was to establish communications and orient itself toward the sun. Ahead in its journey to the moon, Peregrine will fly a phasing loop around Earth and perform necessary course corrections to adjust the spacecraft's approach to the moon.

— Private Peregrine moon lander is stacked on ULA Vulcan rocket ahead of Jan. 8 launch

— The moon: Everything you need to know about Earth's companion

Peregrine is scheduled to enter a high, elliptical orbit around the moon, and gradually lower and circularize its altitude to about 62 miles (100 kilometers) before beginning its landing descent. This won't happen until Peregrine's landing site is on the lunar day-side. Currently, the spacecraft is scheduled to land in the moon's south polar region on Feb. 23.

"Once we begin descent, it's about one hour down to the surface," Thornton explained, saying the landing "will be exciting, nail-biting, terrifying all at once, and a whole range of emotions."

With this first Vulcan launch complete, ULA has an ambitious timeline for the new rocket in 2024. In contrast to 2023, which saw just three ULA launches, the company is planning for double that in Vulcan missions alone.

"We have six Vulcans on the manifest this year," Wentz said on the Jan. 5 call, "and just like with Atlas and Delta, it's dependent upon the contracts, and whether or not the spacecraft are ready to support those launches. So we anticipate some movements in the manifest, but right now, as a baseline, there's six Vulcan contractually on the manifest."

According to Wentz, if data from Vulcan's first launch comes back nominal, "we would be prepped and ready to proceed right now." He said April is the earliest likely opportunity for Vulcan to fly Cert-2, which will launch the first mission of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser cargo space plane to the International Space Station. That schedule, Wentz added, "would be worked in concert with the NASA team and space station availability."

]]> https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-first-launch-peregrine-celestis-moon-mission hpFwirA978YDkar2JRAPbm Mon, 08 Jan 2024 08:14:53 +0000 <![CDATA[ Watch ULA's Vulcan rocket launch private Peregrine moon lander on debut mission early Jan. 8 (Updated) ]]>

Update for 3:30 am ET: The United Launch Alliance successfully launched its first Vulcan Centaur rocket into space early Jan. 8, carrying the private Astrobotic Peregrine moon lander and human remains on mission to the moon and deep space. The Peregrine lander separated as planned is on the way to the moon. Read our full wrap story here. Above is ULA's live webcast of the Vulcan Centaur upper stage's final mission to carry the Celestis Enterprise payload of human remains and DNA from Star Trek actors and alums into deep space.

A historic moon mission will launch early Monday morning (Jan. 8), and you can watch the action live.

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 GMT). The launch — the first ever for the powerful new rocket — will send the private Peregrine moon lander toward Earth's nearest neighbor.

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, beginning at 1:30 a.m. EST (0630 GMT) on Monday.

The Vulcan Centaur will replace ULA's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, workhorses that have sent a variety of high-profile spacecraft into the final frontier. Among the Atlas V's many notable payloads, for example, are NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, New Horizons Pluto probe and OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample-return mission.

The already-retired Delta IV, for its part, lofted many U.S. spy satellites, as well as NASA's Parker Solar Probe and the first-ever mission of the agency's Orion capsule (an uncrewed test flight to Earth orbit back in 2014).

The 202-foot-tall (62 meters) Vulcan Centaur consists of two stages, and its thrust can be augmented by up to six strap-on solid rocket boosters. Vulcan's first stage is powered by two of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, so Monday's mission is a big one for Jeff Bezos' aerospace company as well. (The BE-4 is also the first-stage engine for New Glenn, Blue Origin's big, reusable rocket, which remains in development.)

Vulcan's upper stage is far less novel; it's part of the Centaur family, which has been getting payloads to their off-Earth destinations for decades.

— The moon: Everything you need to know about Earth's companion

— Facts about ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket

Monday's liftoff will the first for Peregrine as well. The robotic lander, which was built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, will aim to become the first private spacecraft ever to touch down softly on the moon.

Peregrine is flying via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to help pave the way for the agency's crewed Artemis moon landings. The private spacecraft is carrying a variety of scientific payloads, provided by NASA and other space agencies, as well as some commercial cargo.

Among the private payloads are memorial capsules from the companies Celestis and Elysium Space. Their inclusion on the mission has drawn criticism from the Navajo Nation, which says that the delivery of human remains to the moon would desecrate a sacred space.

]]> https://www.space.com/vulcan-centaur-launch-peregrine-moon-lander-webcast d2ADTNyupBFydAad48bHWW Sun, 07 Jan 2024 11:00:44 +0000